


Hands of a Musician, Heart of a Soldier

by DominaEcca (Jake_Oxenstierna)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Love, M/M, Smut, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:29:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jake_Oxenstierna/pseuds/DominaEcca
Summary: Hetalia Human AU: In 1941, Gilbert Beilschmidt is wounded on the front lines and sent back to his home in Rosenheim, Germany. With his brother gone, his grandfather's health failing, and a stranger whose very presence may put their very lives in danger, coming home is nothing like what he expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: So, this story was a request, and it will probably be updated slower than Northern Waters, which is part of this same AU. This story is also available on FanFiction dot net, though the chapter format is a little different, along with it's sister story Northern Waters. I will bring both stories over here, but if you get impatient waiting you can hop over there and see them ahead of time.  
> As for the warnings, this story opens with Gilbert on the battlefield, although there isn't anything too graphic or gory depicted. Later on there will be, however, since he will suffer from mild PTSD. There will be sexual themes in later chapters, though I'll still put warnings over those chapters. Finally, there will be two separate character deaths in this story, so this is your warning for that.  
> Other than that, I'm excited to begin this piece and I hope you enjoy!

He stood alone, still breathing heavily though the battle was over, for now. The air was thick and heavy with hot smoke and dirt, and it burned in his throat. He coughed hard, feeling the gritty dirt caking in his mouth. His ears were still ringing loudly from the artillery fire and it left him grappling with the feeling of vertigo. He thought himself as one who knew his way around the battlefield, but they weren't all the same. Gilbert found himself disoriented.

He took a few shallow-feeling steps forward, felt that this was intensely wrong, and stopped. Something told him to try to look for the sun to help him regain his sense of direction, but Gilbert quickly learned that he couldn't turn his head. Panic seized him almost immediately following the confusion. He might have thrashed around in a desperate attempt to move, he certainly tried to cry out, but every action he tried to take seemed to lose its momentum before it could be completed.

What the hell was going on?

It took him a long time, much longer than he would have expected of himself, to realize what was happening.

It had been nearly three days since he stood upon that battlefield.

Even though he began to understand, he still saw smoke and dust swirling up into the evening sky above him as he came to realized he was lying on his back. But now, he knew why there was no sun. The brown sky above him finally stopped churning, and materialized into something he was able to fix his eyes on. Cloth. He was in a medical tent.

After another day and a half, his memory returned to him as complete as it would ever be. He remembered standing on the field before his legs collapsed beneath him suddenly. The battle had been over, and for a terrifying moment he had thought they had been fooled, and that their enemy hadn't really retreated, but then German shouting rang out from the direction the bullet had come, and he yelled back louder. He had been shot by a fellow German solider.

Jolted by the terrifying notion that he might have lost his leg, he struggled intensely to move again, even if it was just to wiggle his toes. The movements were stopped by a hot bolt of pain, which shot up his spine directly to his eyes. It was such a pure and powerful sensation that it colored his vision completely white for a time. The irrational fear of going blind from sheer pain prevented him from trying to move further.

Then, he heard voices nearby, although they came to him slowly and were followed by eerie echoes, almost as though he were underwater. At first, the noises meant nothing; he just squeezed his eyes shut and wished they would stop. Then, a rougher, tougher voice cut through his daze.

"We might have to amputate it," the voice said and then grunted. "Poor bastard."

Gilbert lost consciousness again with a single, grimly hopeful thought: at least he still had a leg to lose.

* * *

Days passed in strange ways; sometimes he felt as though his senses took turns being on alert for the time he was awake. Such as once when he was awakened by a horrid smell, and proceeded to be aware of nothing else but the wretched, disgusting odor for the entire day. After that, his body spent another day shifting between feeling unbearably hot, and bitterly cold. He feared it was due to some kind of fever, but he had never suffered a sickness that could shift his temperature so bizarrely, and it stopped the next day.

In the midst of this, he recalled wanting to go home. However, it wasn't the desire to escape the war, nor was it the search for comfort that fueled this oddly clear notion. There was something there, something wrong. He was needed. Or, he thought he was needed. It was just important that he went home. The longer he pondered this in the short, precious period when the drugs wore off enough to let his mind clear, and before the pain overwhelmed him until the next strong dose, he thought that it might have something to do with his grandfather.

An infinite, blurry time passed, and then he was sharply yanked from his haze by that same, hard voice that had reached him the first time.

"Soldier!" the voice was stern, but not unkind; it reminded him of his grandfather's voice.

He must have responded because the voice lowered a little when he heard it again. "Do you know where you are? Can you tell me your name?"

Gilbert groaned. His throat was dry, and when he swallowed, it ached. The medicine was wearing off now, and the pain was starting to scramble his thoughts, making it hard to focus on the man's questions.

"What is your name, soldier?" the voice demanded of him again.

His eyes cracked open a bit, able to see the shadowy outline of a figure beside him.

"I need to go home," he croaked.

His words were faint, almost inaudible, but the man leaned forward and appeared to catch them.

"Let's just start with your name," he insisted.

Uselessly trying to swallow again, he opened his mouth. "Gil…Gilbert Beilschmidt. I need to get to Rosenheim,"

A higher voice mumbled something a little ways away and the doctor sighed through his nose.

"He's not ready yet. Give him his dose." Then he turned back to him. "We'll talk more soon, Gilbert. Try to rest."

Before he could try to speak again, a cold wave flooded through him, and the already-blurry lines suddenly bled into each other, smearing his vision until the pain retreated and everything went black as he faded away.

Rosenheim…he needed to get to Rosenheim.

* * *

It felt like months passed before he was able to honestly wake up and think without being overwhelmed by pain or drugs. However, the first time he was able to sit up and look around, the relief of being able to move was quickly replaced by a feeling similar to dismay. The people surrounding him were the cause of the horrific stench that hung in the air like a noxious gas. The man directly beside him was missing almost half of his face, it seemed, including his nose and his left eye. He was crying from his right. Gilbert thought he was going to be sick.

"Ah, good. You're up." A different voice suddenly addressed him, making him jerk a little and then hiss in pain.

It wasn't the same doctor who had spoken to him before, which made him wary; he felt unbelievably vulnerable. Still, the man checked him over as though he had done it a thousand times, and it was only then that Gilbert saw the bandage on his right thigh. Both legs were still accounted for, however.

"Alright, I have good news and bad news, which do you want to hear first?" he asked.

Annoyed, Gilbert frowned at him. "Tell me it all."

"Well, the good news is you're going home," he offered him a wrinkly smile.

Gilbert did actually consider this good news, and a fair amount of relief washed over him. After all, going home was the only clear thought he'd had since being shot. On the other hand, if his injury was bad enough to send him home…

"The bad news," the doctor's voice fell, and so did his face as he pushed up a pair of tight-fitting, wire-framed glasses. "The bullet hit your femur bone and fractured it. You didn't need much surgery, and you will be able to walk again, but not for some time. Understand?"

He nodded once as he accepted this, looking down at the thick bandaging that covered most of his thigh and knee, holding his leg straight with something like a splint. It hurt horribly, and now that he knew exactly what was hurt, it seemed to amplify the pain. The doctor nodded understandingly and got up to get him medicine. As he did so the other doctor, the one who had spoken to him before, entered and looked at him as he walked by.

"You're going home, kid." he told him simply.

Gilbert lied back slowly, feeling as though he were still dreaming although the intensity of reality was finally catching up to him. He would get see his grandfather. Somehow, he still knew this was very important, and the knowledge that he would be able to do this helped him to relax a little.

"I'm coming home," he muttered quietly as the doctor returned and his eyes began to close. "I'll be there soon."

* * *

 

_Seven months._

He would need the cast for seven months, and even after that he would still need some kind of wheelchair or crutch. It honestly frustrated Gilbert to be put in such a feeble state, but for now he was just happy to be home. He remembered why he had been so eager.

Elizabeta, the nurse that took care of his grandfather and his house, had written him a letter expressing her concern for his grandfather's health. He hadn't been so bad when Gilbert and his little brother Ludwig had left, but this past winter had been harsh and he'd had a cough for years that was only getting worse. If he was no good to anyone on the front lines, then he wanted to be home with his grandfather.

Once they had gone through hell just to get him into the small house, and set him up in a wheelchair that had an extended place for his leg to rest on, Elizabeta didn't waste time asking if he wanted to rest, and pushed him down the hall to his grandfather's room.

His grandfather was an unbelievably strong man, even in his declining years, but he was quiet. He frowned most of the time, and was very strict, but Gilbert held his grandfather's approval above all else. Ludwig took after him more than Gilbert did, both in appearance and personality, but his grandfather always considered him first, although sometimes he wondered if it was simply because he was older. He had spent nearly his whole life trying to earn his praise; even though he had mostly accepted that his grandfather would always be more proud of his younger brother, but with everything that had happened to Ludwig…

Elizabeta gently pushed him beside the bed and walked around to the other side, and then softly called for the old man to wake up.

" _Herr_ Beilschmidt,"

"No, if he's sleeping—"

But his grandfather had already opened his eyes. They didn't open sleepily, but instead fixed themselves on Gilbert with impeccable accuracy.

"Gilbert?" he asked, his voice was hoarse, but somehow still firm. "You're home?"

He smiled and nodded at him. "I'm home."

"Why?" he frowned, those heavy brows lowering.

Feeling a little disappointed that he wasn't just happy to see him, he smiled wryly. "When I heard about your condition, I got shot as soon as I could so they'd send me home."

His grandfather frowned even deeper, the old lines in his face detailing his annoyance. "What?"

"He's joking," Elizabeta interjected quietly. "But I told you we got the letter last week. Gilbert was accidently shot by another German soldier."

There was a tense moment of silence.

"You were shot, by a German?" he asked slowly and Gilbert's head tipped forward.

For some reason, his words carried an indescribable amount of shame.

"He couldn't see me very well through the smoke," he muttered.

His grandfather's eyes moved from his own to his white hair, and then he grunted critically. "Does Ludwig know?"

Gilbert's whole body stiffened, making him wince a little. "No, I haven't written to him yet,"

"Have you heard from him?"

"Uh," he swallowed dryly.

The last time he had heard from him, his younger brother had been, to put it bluntly, deserting. His brother was not a coward, nor was he a traitor. The soldiers in his unit had turned on him, making him look to be some kind of double agent. There wouldn't have been a trial, not for that. So, Gilbert didn't think of him as a deserter, but he knew he might be the only one. Yet, Ludwig had somehow managed to escape to Sweden, and for now, as far as Gilbert knew, he was safe.

"He's safe; they sent him north. There's not a lot going on there." he muttered.

His grandfather grunted again and closed his eyes.

Gilbert had been ignoring his pain up until then, but then he sighed heavily and it all seemed to overwhelm him.

Elizabeta noticed, and after getting his grandfather set to go back to sleep, she took him and wheeled him out of the room. He stared at the familiar hallway as they headed down to his bedroom, which was off to the left, absently taking note of the small dents that had been made when he and Ludwig would wrestle inside until his grandfather would send them out.

That felt like a long time ago. Maybe it was.

Entering his room, he felt a strange rush of emotion, and found himself having to bite his cheeks to keep from crying. It didn't help that Elizabeta noticed that, too.

"Your grandfather loves you," she told him, those kind, green eyes trying to capture his, though he made every effort to avoid them.

He didn't speak. He wasn't going to argue that, but, that didn't mean he completely believed it either. She sighed a little, but helped him into his bed without saying much more. After that she told him she would make dinner and bring it to him when it was ready. He thanked her in a mumble and the door shut.

Gilbert had known Elizabeta for years. She was kind and honest, but he knew she was as lethal as she was beautiful. He had also learned very quickly that she wouldn't stand for any of his advances. According to a confession he had heard only once, she was actually married. She had been forced to sell her wedding ring, and her husband had stayed behind when she left, although she never told him why. She was a Hungarian, and spoke German easily enough, although her accent was identifiable when she was more relaxed. She also had a distinct motherly vibe to her, which both German men grumbled about, but which both men also found impossible to disobey. Still, she was hardly overbearing, and was always very respectful to his grandfather.

Concluding his thoughts on Elizabeta, he let out a heavy breath and reached for his journal. The old, worn book felt almost heavy with ink, since there wasn't a day that he didn't record something in it. However, he couldn't recall if he had written anything since he'd been shot, so he opened it to the most recent pages and began to look them over. What he saw gave him a strange sickly feeling deep in his stomach.

The first few entries were messy and scribbled, and he could only make out a few words, such as 'home' and 'Ludwig'. After that, all the entries were the same.

'I'm coming home.'

Gilbert slid the pen out of its holder at the back and marked the date. He simply wrote that he had come home. It was honestly all he could bring himself to say. He could write more later, but for the moment he felt sleep creeping up on him, and allowed it to seize him.

As he slept, he dreamed about Sweden. Ludwig was there now, his little brother. He had been injured, shot in the leg, though his injury was hardly as dire. He might have chuckled at that bitter irony. Ludwig was smart, he'd be alright, but the knowledge that he might never see him again weighted heavy on him. He was his brother after all; they were supposed to have been together through this whole thing. Everything had just gone wrong.

When he awoke, he thought about his return from Sweden.

As soon as he had heard what was happening to his brother, he knew what he would do. So, he had left his company in secret and traveled hundreds of miles against orders to find him. Despite the way he usually stuck out in a crowd, Gilbert knew how to move around without being seen if he had to. He found him safe and sound, if not a little shot. He had been taken in by armed rebels, and had informed Gilbert that he would be going with them. Yet, when he returned to his unit, no one was impressed with how he had avoided getting into any trouble at all. He remembered them gasping when he walked into the tent, and one crying out that he was a ghost.

"Oh, no, wait. It's just the albino." he said and they laughed cruelly.

It was then he realized he didn't want to be there. He hadn't wanted to come back. No matter where he was, Gilbert felt he didn't really belong. He didn't belong on the battlefield with the others, and he didn't belong back home. He felt as though he had been born out of place.

Still, as he followed his memories, he recalled the following battle, but only pieces. He remember the thick smoke and dust, and the sudden pain to match the sound of a bullet splitting the air. Amidst the confusion and panic and pain, he vaguely thought that others had run to him, but as soon as someone put pressure on his leg to stop the bleeding, he blacked out. After that there was nothing until he awoke in the medical tent.

He felt that strange sickness in his stomach again, and a sudden flash of gory faces crossed his eyes. He squeezed them shut, but they didn't vanish for a few seconds more. Although he was not a strange to the horrors of battle, for some reason his hands were shaking, and when Elizabeta came back with dinner, he was hardly able to eat.

* * *

Two months dragged by torturously. Gilbert was usually confined to his bed or the couch, and if he wanted to move, getting in to the wheelchair without Elizabeta's help was a painful and tiresome ordeal. His grandfather slept most of the time, usually having to be awoken by Elizabeta for meal time, and Gilbert kept his distance. He knew he would only ask him about things that made him sick to think about.

These things, however, became more prominent in his mind after a few weeks and he began losing sleep. It started with Gilbert waking up earlier and having a harder time falling asleep, and he tried to blame it on his lack of exercise, but it only got worse. Some nights he hardly slept at all, and then would refuse to get out of bed in the morning. He felt steadily drained, and although Elizabeta would try to help, her main focus was his grandfather, and to keep it that way, he often rejected her offers to assist him.

Once, however, when he was trying to move himself from the couch back into the wheelchair, there was a commotion outside, and a gunshot rang out. Gilbert yelped like a kicked dog and slipped when his body jerked, sending him crashing to the floor. It was a horrid pain, even though he had landed mostly on his uninjured leg, but almost worse than that was the feeling that he couldn't breathe. He was shaking, feeling like his trembling muscles had turned to jelly, and he vaguely remembered Elizabeta gathering him into her arms, trying to console him. After he calmed down and the strange wave of terror passed, he denied being startled. He didn't want her to think that he was jumpy around gunshots now; he was still a soldier. He was trained to be fearless. Yet, over the course of the rest of the day, it began to press harder on his mind. He tried to tell himself that he had just been surprised, that he hadn't expected to hear a gunshot so close to the house, but still he felt uncomfortable about the event.

Another few weeks later, late into the evening, Gilbert had wheeled himself to his room and was about to shut the door when he heard whispering down the hall. He froze and listened.

Elizabeta was telling his grandfather something in a hushed, almost frantic voice. He responded in his low, calm voice, but seemed to understand. Then, she asked a question, or perhaps some kind of request, and there was a tense silence.

His grandfather answered affirmatively.

She immediately began speaking, but he hushed her, and repeated his answer. Gilbert frowned, but then it sounded if she had begun to cry, and his eyes widened.

What had they been talking about?

He knew better than to just go intrude and ask, but he couldn't quiet his mind. Still, despite all of the answers he tried to come up with, he had a feeling deep in his stomach that he would find out soon enough.

* * *

A few days later, Elizabeta left very early in the morning, after checking on his grandfather, and didn't returned until late into the evening. Gilbert had gotten himself up into his wheelchair so that he could help his grandfather if he needed anything, but the request for his help never came, even as he remained in the same room with him. Yet, when Elizabeta arrived, before Gilbert could take himself back to bed, he realized that he heard two sets of footprints enter the house along with hushed voices.

Terror seized him momentarily, feeling utterly weak and vulnerable, but then Elizabeta's lovely form appeared at the end of the hallway, and she smiled at him. She looked incredibly tired, but somehow relieved at the same time. As she made her way down to where he waited just inside his grandfather's room, he saw someone else following her.

A man.

But not anyone he had seen before. Almost immediately he figured him to be Elizabeta's husband, and looked him over critically. He was not particularly tall, but perhaps near Gilbert's height. His hair was a deep, dark color of brown and he was dressed in a long, blue coat with a white collar and black boots. Gilbert could also see that he wore glasses with thin, wire frames, and then he realized that he was looking back at him.

With a start, Gilbert saw that his eyes, which he had initially mistaken for blue, were an intense color of purple. Almost violet. He had never seen eyes like those before. Even when he had gone to Sweden, the one who opened the door for him had a strange color of eyes, but they were dull and gave him chills. These eyes glistened like amethysts, though the stranger quickly looked away when their eyes met.

The German frowned.

Elizabeta was still smiling when she entered the room, and walked around the bed to awaken his grandfather. Just like before, his eyes snapped open and instantly spotted the man entering the room.

" _Herr_ Beilschmidt, this is Roderich Edelstein." she introduced him.

He stepped forward and inclined his head, but said nothing.

Gilbert arched an eyebrow. Elizabeta's last name wasn't Edelstein.

"Your cousin?" he asked after clearing his throat a few times, his voice harsh.

They both nodded.

Annoyed that no one had said anything to him, Gilbert huffed a little and Elizabeta looked at him and frowned for him to be quiet. He frowned back.

"You're welcome to stay here with us, Roderich." his grandfather said after a moment of studying him.

"Thank you, _Herr_ Beilschmidt." he inclined his head again, his tone calm and even, but Gilbert caught the sound of faint relief in his voice.

Elizabeta then quickly walked over and embraced him tightly, and then thanked Gilbert's grandfather as well. She then ushered him out to get him set up in one of the rooms upstairs, and Gilbert looked at his grandfather when they were alone, still arching an eyebrow. The elder man's eyes were closed, but he knew he was awake.

Gilbert wanted to ask the question that now rested just inside his mouth, lying on his tongue, but he swallowed hard in an attempt to avoid having to say it aloud.

Although the man, Roderich, held himself in a manner that could convince most of royal blood, Gilbert saw the way his eyes shifted, the way his shoulders weren't as squared as they could be. These were not personal quirks; they were learned behaviors.

He had been trained by a very particular type of fear: persecution.

Gilbert knew who the persecuted were these days, and knew well that this could put his grandfather in a very dangerous position. Harboring a wanted person was a crime by all accounts. Gilbert swallowed again.

"Not him. His grandparents, though." his grandfather suddenly answered, saving him from having to ask the question directly.

"What?" although he had already guessed as much, he still was shocked by the action; he had just witnessed his grandfather meeting him for the first time, why would he take such a risk for a stranger?

"You heard me, boy. Now listen, while I'm alive, this is still my house, and if I say he's welcome here, then he is. Understand?" his eyes opened narrowly, pinning Gilbert with a sharp, unwavering expression he had come to expect.

He tried not to wince at the mention of it only being a matter of time until his grandfather's word was no longer law in the household, but nodded quickly. "Yes."

"Good." he sighed heavily, coughing a bit more as he sank into his pillow. "You hear from your brother yet?"

Gilbert thought about lying, about saying that he received a letter saying he was safe and well, but, he couldn't.

"Not yet." he choked out after a moment.

His grandfather grumbled without opening his mouth to actually speak, and Gilbert removed himself from the room, shutting the door behind him. He didn't want to be in there anymore.

As he made his way back to his room, he heard the shuffling of feet above him and sighed bitterly.

Gunshots would bother him worse now, he just knew it.


	2. Chapter 2

Roderich had initially been terrified of the idea to move to Germany, but once he was with Elizabeta again he found he felt safer. They weren't as directly related as they claimed, but they had known each other nearly their entire lives, and he was glad to have her company again. However, she was often busy with cleaning and tending to Herr Beilschmidt, whose condition began to worsen with the weather.

He found he had come to rather like the old German; he was firm and steady, and somehow made it out to seem as though he could gather his strength to rise from bed if he desired. They all knew better, but Roderich contributed this habit of masking pain and disability to his military training. Like his grandsons, Herr Beilschmidt had also been a soldier, although he spoke of it rarely. He seemed proud, but quietly so.

Gilbert, on the other hand, was rarely quiet about anything.

At first, he had been utterly struck by his appearance. He had white hair, unlike the kind achieved from age. There was no trace that there had ever been color present. Then, there were his eyes. When he first saw him from the end of the hallway, he had mistaken the vibrant red across his eyes as an injury. Yet, upon moving closer, he had come to realize they were not damaged; he was an albino.

Roderich had always thought he had a strange appearance. He had violet eyes, which he tried to partially hide behind a pair of glasses and occasionally his hand placed upon them. The cause of his strange coloring was what the doctors had called "incomplete albinism". He still had color to his skin and hair, but he burned easily in direct sunlight and it was the cause of his discolored eyes. This had not prepared him to see an actual albino, however.

Not to mention the wheelchair and his heavily bandaged leg had been surprising to see. The man looked like his grandfather in that sense; as though he would have stood up if he had been asked to. Yet, the injury looked severe, and Roderich wondered if he would be able to walk again. He had done his own time confined to such a device, but the thoughts were dark, and he shook his head to clear them away.

One thing he was honestly happy to learn was that they had a piano in the house, in the main room on the ground floor. It was old, but once he dusted it and obtained permission from _Herr_ Beilschmidt, it played beautifully. The elder German occasionally praised him on his musical skill, and appeared to enjoy the soft music in the otherwise quiet home, but Gilbert was not so receptive.

He whined and complained to anyone who would listen about the annoyance that was Roderich's passion. Sometimes he could have sworn that the wounded soldier got out of bed purely to come into the main room and criticize everything he did. He didn't like the composers, or the piece was too long. Somehow, he managed to find fault with every note he played. Quickly aware that everyone else ignored Gilbert's complaining, he opted to follow the status quo, and ignored him as well. He couldn't stop himself from occasionally sending him annoyed glances or demanding to know if he had anything better to do, but this only seemed to encourage him, and he always had a snide reply ready. On top of that, he had decided to stick him with a nickname. He now frequently called him Specs, and it annoyed him deeply.

The only thing that kept him from perhaps responding to the antagonisms, besides his own sense of nobility and pride, was the fact that he was always kind and polite to Elizabeta. Although Roderich wouldn't have expected it of the barbaric man, he always thanked his cousin when she assisted him with his wound, or brought him food. Occasionally she would bring him news of his grandfather's condition, and even though it was rarely easy to hear, he thanked her for taking care of him. His attitude completely changed towards Roderich, but the fact that he could exhibit kindness and civility, if only to Elizabeta, helped him to ignore Gilbert's attempts to bother him.

It wasn't until he had been staying in the small house for nearly a month that he saw a more drastic display of the soldier's humanity.

The nights were coming sooner, and the house often fell quiet earlier as a result. Roderich had been making his way to the stairs to retire to his bedroom on the upper level when he heard _Herr_ Beilschmidt speaking. At first, he had thought he was calling for Elizabeta, and moved to look for her, but then he heard Gilbert mutter a low response.

Roderich would have never described himself as a curious person, but this night his curiosity grew until it suddenly bore him a few steps towards the end of the hall, just close enough to listen.

"Just one, just one more letter…"

By now, _Herr_ Beilschmidt's was considerably worse, and he often suffered from fever-like symptoms. Sometimes he rambled senselessly, and sometimes he was as clear as he had been when Roderich met him. Now, he sounded like he was speaking in delirium.

"I know, I know." Gilbert muttered again, sounding as though he were trying to comfort him.

"Why won't he write home, Gilbert? Just one more letter from him. I want to hear from Ludwig just once more." his grandfather continued.

By now, Roderich knew of Ludwig. He was Gilbert's younger brother, who was still serving on the front lines. He hadn't written home for a while, an anomaly for him, although Gilbert constantly assured his grandfather that his younger brother was doing well. Still, even Roderich was able to catch the tone of uncertainty in his voice.

Halfway through a reassuring sentence, Gilbert's voice caught, and didn't resume. A sound reached Roderich's ears that confused him initially, but then he recognized it to be muffled sobbing.

Horror crossed his face at realizing how painful this situation was for the wounded German. Soldiers died all the time on the front lines, would they be informed if something had happened to his brother before they gathered it for themselves?

Gilbert had to try to convince his grandfather of something he couldn't know himself, not unless they received either a letter or an official notice. But, according to Elizabeta, he didn't even request to see the mail anymore. Roderich wondered if he was giving up hope; it felt like it was a thing that was hard for everyone to hold on to now.

Eventually, he receded from the edge of the hallway and made his way upstairs. He had a strange notion to try to comfort the normally irritating man, but he wasn't entirely sure how. As he retired to his bedroom, he slowly reasoned that he might express such a feeling in his own way.

* * *

The next day, he played a selection of softer pieces with sweeter, smoother melodies. He hoped it would help soothe the painful feelings in the house.

Gilbert eventually arrived into the main room, and for a moment he was utterly silent, but then he spoke.

"It's too early for that shit," he grumbled irritably. "Knock it off."

His tone gave him pause, long enough for him to turn at the bench just enough so their eyes met. They didn't often look at each other, and when they did, the room instantly felt tense. This time, however, Gilbert looked back at him in a different way. He wasn't smug, nor appearing pleased that he succeeded in halting the flow of the music. He looked strangely serious, and for the first time, he saw in Gilbert a man of war.

Roderich slowly removed his hands from the ivory keys and placed them silently in his lap.

Gilbert huffed, but didn't say anything more. He didn't taunt or mock him; he simply maneuvered the chair around, and returned to his room. Roderich didn't see him for the rest of the day.

So much for trying to help, he thought with a huff.

* * *

He was a weird bastard, that was for sure.

Roderich moved about the house as though he were lord over everything he saw. Gilbert had seen peacocks walk with more humility. And that wasn't even the worst part.

Sometimes, when Gilbert wasn't in the middle of insulting him, Roderich would look at him with the most profound expression of understanding he had ever seen. It was as though he could have told him anything, things from the darkest parts of his mind, and he would have understood. It irritated Gilbert to have a stranger looked at him so, with those stunning purple eyes that seemed so open and honest.

What did he want? He obviously didn't want Gilbert's friendship; he looked down his nose at him every chance he got. And yet, sometimes he swore he played just to coax Gilbert out in order to fix him with that gaze that made his heart leap up into his throat. He look at him with that same expression on his far-too-delicate face, which seemed to promise him a confidant. Gilbert now frequently left the room quickly.

Was it possible that he was just playing some sick game? Gilbert shook his head and sighed. Maybe being in his room so much was messing with his mind. Even as a kid he never spent too much time alone; it made him feel weird. Which led to weird thoughts. He figured he would just go and sit with the Austrian and see what he did. If he was just trying to mess with him, Gilbert would find out. If nothing else, it would give him something to do.

The music had already begun by the time Gilbert had made it to the main room. He was starting to wonder if Roderich just slept at the piano. He didn't turn as Gilbert wheeled himself into the room, but he knew he was well aware of him. Gilbert didn't recognize the piece he was playing, but secretly, he found it rather pleasant. It had a softer melody, and it was slower, sweeter.

Gilbert moved himself over to sit beside the window. There had once been a chair there where Gilbert had often liked to sit on days when he was stuck inside, but Elizabeta had moved it for him. Not much happened on the quiet streets that he could see, but it was always better than watching the walls and frozen paintings.

As the music continued, Gilbert noticed a bird flying over the rooftops. It was probably some type of kestrel. As he continued to watch it soar on the cold winds, he absently thought that somehow the music seemed to fit perfectly to its movements. Gilbert risked a glance towards the piano, but Roderich had his eyes closed as he played. He frowned a little, but turned back towards the window in time to see the bird spread its majestically pale wings, and swoop down to perch precariously on the sharp ridge of a nearby roof.

It wasn't until then, when Roderich sat back and sighed, that Gilbert realized he had listened to the entire piece without saying a word. This sudden notion caused him slight panic, leaving him to draw a blank for something to say. Something that wasn't about birds or how much he had actually enjoyed the music. However, Roderich seemed indifferent to the fact that he hadn't spoken yet, and so after a moment, Gilbert wheeled a bit closer, and looked over his shoulder.

Roderich was shuffling through his sheet music, and Gilbert squinted at the strange markings and symbols.

"Can you read music?" Roderich asked suddenly.

His voice was so soft, hardly more than a whisper, as though he hadn't prepared himself before speaking.

Gilbert stared in bewilderment for a moment, caught off guard, but when Roderich glanced at him over the rims of his glasses, he shook his head.

"Nah," he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling strangely embarrassed. "They tried to teach us a little in school, but I was never very good at it,"

Roderich's mouth twitched a little, he might have hummed disapprovingly, but he refrained from scoffing at him. There was another moment of silence while Roderich flipped through a few more pages until he settled on one. Gilbert looked it over and arched an eyebrow. He had no idea what any of it meant.

"It looks like a totally different language," he mumbled.

The Austrian raised his slender eyebrows and glanced at him again, those violet eyes glinting in the pale light from the window. "Music is a universal language."

Gilbert considered this quietly, but then frowned. "…I thought that was mathematics,"

Roderich gave him the first annoyed expression of the day. The German couldn't help it; he grinned.

"What?"

Several hours passed with a rapidness that Gilbert had almost forgotten. Since he had come home, he had been made painfully aware of each passing minute, but it wasn't until Elizabeta was suddenly serving dinner that he realized that it was already well into the evening. She seemed surprised to see them sitting together in the same room peacefully, but when asked, Roderich denied that Gilbert had been serving as a good audience. In his own defense, Gilbert pointed out the fact that listening to pieces as long as the ones Roderich insisted on playing warranted the need to rely on himself for entertainment.

"Unless, it's alright for me to nap while you play," Gilbert smirked.

"It is not!" he cried, his slender fingers curling into a harmless fist

He snickered. "Yeah, I guess you're right Specs. Awful noises like that would lead to nightmares."

Elizabeta slapped the back of his head as she passed, heading down the hall with a sigh. Gilbert whined, rubbing where he'd been hit. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked.

Roderich had stopped spluttering angrily, and instead looked lightly amused.

"What?" Gilbert demanded.

"Nothing." he said innocently, but he saw the smallest smirk on his lips as he turned to his food.

"Damn right nothing," he mumbled.

But as he ate, Gilbert vaguely thought that he rather liked the way his eyes softened when the musician smiled. He thought it might have reminded him of something, but before he could honestly think about it, he quickly shut the thought down. He wasn't thinking about Roderich's eyes again. They were just weird. Not that he was thinking about them.

* * *

That night, just as Gilbert was about to begin his journal entry for the day, Elizabeta entered suddenly and without knocking.

Her green eyes were opened wide despite the lines of tiredness under them, and her hair was in a wild mess, but as soon as their eyes met, he knew why.

Without a word from either of them, she helped him back into the wheelchair and took him down the hallway to his grandfather's room. The second they crossed the threshold, the air seemed heavier. His grandfather was lying just as he had since Gilbert came home, but something about it was making Gilbert's throat constrict.

The older man coughed hard, wheezing heavily as he tried to breathe, and then his head tipped to the side.

When his eyes opened, they couldn't seem to find Gilbert for a moment, and his hand opened blindly as if to reach for him. He took his hand firmly and leaned closer, opening his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. In something of a panic, he looked to Elizabeta, but she just looked away. There was nothing else they could do.

"Gil?" his grandfather rasped, his hand weakly clasping his.

"I'm here," he told him quickly, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Where's Ludwig?" he asked.

He tried twice to swallow, but couldn't. "He…He's safe,"

"Where's my grandson?" he asked, his eyes losing focus slowly.

_I'm here,_ he wanted to say again, but that's not what his grandfather was asking.

"He'll be home soon." Gilbert said, his voice choking until he was practically whispering.

"I wish I could have seen him one last time," his eyes began to close. "I would have told him to stay home. I wouldn't have let him go."

His grandfather's hand began to fall limp, even as he struggled to hold it tight. A shot of terror bolted through him.

"Grandfather?" he gasped loudly, and then tears began to sting his eyes as his hand lost its strength completely. "Oh God, no,"

Elizabeta walked to him quickly, putting her hands on his shoulders as he bent and pressed the lifeless knuckles to his forehead. Gilbert sobbed, not bothering to hold back. It didn't matter now.

Regardless of the facts, Gilbert realized that a part of him had honestly expected his grandfather to survive. To recover. To someday get up out of bed and irritably order him to clean the house. To be with him when the war ended and everyone came home. It seemed that only now he was realizing all of that had simply been wishful thinking.

No one in the house slept that night. And yet, somehow, it still felt like it was all a dream. A nightmare. Unreal.

He knew better, but that was how it felt.

The house wouldn't feel the same now.


	3. Chapter 3

It was dark. Impossibly dark. And close. Gilbert felt as though he were in a very tight, confining space, but that if he reached out, he wouldn't be able to touch whatever was confining him. A sick, slow panic began to snake around his throat, making his breaths come thinner and faster. He couldn't remember if he was lost, or if he had been aware of exactly where he was. Feeling his brain being steadily depraved of oxygen by his hyperventilation, Gilbert forced himself to open his eyes, terrified of what he might see, but that particular terror was overturned by the awful anxiety of being blinded to what might come.

As soon as the image came into focus, his lips pulled back from his teeth as his mouth flew opened in a silent scream. The inky darkness had fled to the edges of his vision, allowing the vision before him to take on a nightmarish white. A white hallway. He couldn't stop trying to scream, to cry for help, to just turn away and not look, but he could only stand still with his mouth agape, his air being forcibly squeezed from his lungs.

Had Gilbert been able to step out of himself and examine this situation, he would have perhaps thought that a hallway, albeit a very creepily white hallway, was not honestly that terrifying. Especially since this particular hall was one he had seen countless times in his life. Although it was distorted and discolored, he knew this hall by heart. His bedroom was the first door on the right, after that there was a linen closet. Directly across the hall was the bathroom, the only door on that side. In the hallway he was now staring at, all the doors were shut, including the door at the very end of the hall. The only thing different about this last door was, though it was mostly closed, Gilbert could see that it was not fully shut to the doorframe. It was opened just a crack.

His heart began to hammer in his chest at this vision. The door was supposed to be shut. Locked. The key tossed out the fucking window. And yet, he could see the darker outline on one side, indicating that it had opened fractionally. Who had done that? Was he supposed to shut it?

Without permission, his feet began to carry him down the hallway, which began to stretch away from him, like a mirage. As each door passed, however, he was able to see the various dents and scratches in the walls that he and Ludwig had left from when they were younger. With each new mark he noticed, the bright hallway began to darken, and the white walls began to appear smudged with dirt and rot as though neglected for years.

The fear that was steadily consuming Gilbert from the inside out was changing. Forsaking his want to find out anything more about that damned door, he attempted to reverse directions. He was not able to turn around, feeling almost like he was being held at the shoulders and forced to face forwards, but he did manage to stop. When he looked to the end of the hall again, he expected to see the door far away in the distance, still stretching impossibly to get away from him. Instead, he found he was so close to it that his boots were nearly on the threshold, and that his nose was nearly touching the rotted, warped wood.

Another silent scream was choked back by his lack of air, and the sheer horror of being so closed to this ominous, abnormally large structure prevented him from drawing another breath. Gilbert's eyes were wide with his terror, and when they looked down upon the doorknob, the normally smooth metal was tarnished and deformed. But that wasn't what he noticed. Instead, his eyes were frozen to something that was not there. The lock, the heavy, metal lock was gone as though it had been clawed out of the wood by nails. Only darkness filled the awkward hole, and there was nothing to forcibly hold the door shut now.

Slowly, but too quickly for Gilbert to stop it, the door swung open on its rusty hinges. He faced the darkness of his grandfather's room. The smell that wafted from this void was even more wretched than what he had been forced to breathe on the battlefield. This was the smell of something that had been rotting for _years_.

Then, something inside the room moved. Blankets rustled, and something thumped to the floor.

The terror that filled his body was too much, it overwhelmed him. He could _not_ see what was in there, he just couldn't. He couldn't stand to know. He would die first.

Finally, Gilbert screamed.

The noise tore him away from the darkness, from the door, and out of the horrifying hallway. He awoke when he was thrust back into his bed, sweating and still screaming as his chest heaved powerfully. Pain and fear mixed in his chest, and when it dropped to the pit of his stomach, Elizabeta burst into his room just in time to see him vomit over the side of the bed.

"Gilbert," she spoke in a whisper that he didn't hear.

He wanted to keep screaming, but the bile in his mouth and throat silenced him except for his gurgling and gasping.

The brunette approached him, careful to avoid the vomit, and patted his back with a hard hand until he had coughed and spat most of the bitterness out, and was able to draw in a clean breath. She didn't say anything for a while. She simply left to get him some water to wash the taste out and to clean the floor with, and then she lit a single candle by his bed without a word and sat on the bed to hold his hand.

Any other time, Gilbert would have wanted to be alone, or he would have denied the need for her to stay with him, but he found himself clutching tightly to her hand, his knuckles turning white while he tried to remember how to breathe steadily.

Just when it seemed Elizabeta was about to speak, the door was pushed open a bit, and a pair of purple eyes met Gilbert's.

The three of them just stared at each other in silence for a few minutes, and then Roderich took a timid step into the room.

"Is everything alright?" he was whispering too, but Gilbert heard him.

Elizabeta looked at Gilbert as he slowly released her hand.

"Yeah, Specs, everything's all good." he tried to raise his voice louder than a whisper, but it was sore from the vomit, and the screaming.

His concerned face twitched in annoyance at the nickname, and Gilbert almost could have smiled.

"Are you sick?" he pressed, his arms moving like he would have folded them if his cousin hadn't fixed him with a stern look.

Gilbert rubbed the back of his neck, his stomach still feeling unsettled. "Nah. Probably just, you know, food poisoning."

Elizabeta gasped in offence, and he shielded his face, but she didn't hit him. A part of him didn't like that. Was he pitiful now?

Roderich scoffed in the doorway. "I doubt that,"

"Everything's fine. Go back to bed, Roderich," Elizabeta suggested, although both men knew it was an order to be followed without question.

He nodded to her, but as he turned, his eyes met Gilbert's once more, and he saw those deeply purple orbs flash with concern behind his spectacles. Something stirred inside of him, but it was hard to identify with nausea accounting for most of his inward feelings.

Elizabeta waited to speak again until Roderich's light feel could be heard climbing the stairs.

"Do you think you can sleep? I don't mind staying," she told him gently, trying to offer help without offending his pride.

Her efforts didn't go unnoticed, but Gilbert was just too proud. Always had been.

"I can sleep," he mumbled meeting her eyes despite his want to look away when her stare hardened in an attempt to get an admittance of truth from him.

When he didn't break eye contact, she eventually sighed and nodded, standing from the bed quietly and walking around to the door after readjusting the blankets over him.

"Gilbert?" she paused at the door, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Yeah?" he looked over at her as he settled back down into the bed.

"Tomorrow…we should talk about, arrangements. It's your house now, after all." she swallowed as she spoke; it had been long enough since he had passed, they needed to decide what to do now.

The contents of Gilbert's unsettled stomach chilled a bit, but he just nodded. "Alright."

She nodded back, looking like she might have said more, but instead just left him with that single candle that had been left lit, and shut the door behind her.

He might have protested a nightlight, but he certainly wouldn't tonight. Even the faint darkness in the corners of his room made him fearful. So, in an attempt to lull himself back to sleep, he stared directly into the single flame of the candle beside him. He tried to let himself be comforted by remembering old stories about angels with flaming swords, who fought demons and evil things of darkness, but those stories felt so far away. If Elizabeta had stayed with him, she might have told him one of those old stories again, she knew they comforted him because she had listened to his grandfather tell them. At least his grandfather had remembered that about him, even if he didn't remember it at the very end.

No, if she would have stayed, Gilbert decided he would have talked to her about his little brother. He missed Ludwig, he worried about him. It was hard to get news about the war that wasn't just propaganda, and when Gilbert had been fighting, the German soldiers had been advancing so fast. Where would he go to hide? Where _could_ he go, to escape the battles of a global war?

Elizabeta would have comforted him, even if she couldn't honestly assure him of his brother's safety. Maybe he needed that, though. But it was his damned pride that said he didn't need the comfort of another. He knew his pride would damn him before long.

The candle burned low, but the gentle light remained with him through the rest of the night. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that the puddle of wax swallowed the fire, and by then the dull morning light was entering in through the window. That was when Gilbert was finally able to sleep again. The nightmares wouldn't come while the sky was light. From now on, his battles would be to get through the darkness with his sanity intact.

* * *

The following morning, closer to noon than sunrise so Gilbert could get more sleep, they took breakfast in the kitchen for once. It was a rare sight anymore, but he remembered his grandfather forcing Ludwig and Gilbert to behave and sit at the table if they were going to get their meals. Elizabeta moved the regular chair so that he could sit in his normal spot. She was like that; so kind to him, but in silent ways.

They ate quietly for most of their meal, but eventually Elizabeta swallowed, and cleared her throat. Gilbert and Roderich both raised their heads to look at her.

"It was your grandfather who invited both of us to stay, but, we are both prepared to leave if you say." she told him, her back straight and her eyes meeting his fearlessly.

Straightforward. More so than anyone Gilbert had ever met, even Ludwig.

Still, it was a serious decision. He took his time eyeing them both, especially Roderich. He was a danger. But, he knew that if Roderich went, Elizabeta would go with him, and although he had been healing, it was a slow process, and there was no way he could run the house on his own. He couldn't even get over the threshold to the front door by himself.

"You can stay," he shifted a little, and then glanced up at both of them before looking back down at his food. "Both of you."

Elizabeta and Roderich exchanged a hesitant look that he couldn't help but to notice. Yet, she wasn't going to ask Gilbert if he was sure, or if he wanted more time to think it through. He said what he meant, and he would stick to it. As of now, Roderich was to remain in the house for protection. Maybe, at the end of the war, things would be different.

The conversation proceeded timidly, with long pauses and implied endings to sentences. It was slowly reasoned that Elizabeta would have to get a job working with another household, but that she would help here in the evenings when she came home. Gilbert would be forced to remain in doors with Roderich, and they would do as much of the house work as they could each day she left. Gilbert felt that if they could just get through this coming winter, it would mean something for all of them.

Roderich quietly agreed to most of everything that was established, but the surprised expression he made when Elizabeta informed him it would be up to him to help Gilbert and to clean and cook while she was gone was priceless. She asked if he knew how to cook when he continued to look stunned, and Gilbert finally laughed. He glared, but sniffed and informed them that he did in fact know how to cook. It seemed he wanted to protest, but there was nothing to be done about it, even if any of them had wanted it to be different. This was just how it would have to be for a while.

When Roderich continued to look mad at him, however, Gilbert shrugged and tried to smile at him. "Hey, better you than me. My cooking would kill us."

He looked shocked by his words, and didn't laugh, but Elizabeta did. She just knew it was true.

When Roderich and Elizabeta looked at each other again, Gilbert saw faint smiles. They all needed something from each other, he supposed. Elizabeta needed a home, Roderich needed somewhere to hide, and Gilbert…he just needed not to be left alone. Not now. Maybe after some time passed, but for now, even the thought of Elizabeta leaving during the day was potentially alarming. He found himself comforted by the fact that Roderich would remain with him in the house all day. The man was still hardly more than a stranger to him, but they shared the fact they would both be forcibly restrained within the walls of the house for the next few months at least, and Gilbert let this secretly comfort him.

After all, according to Elizabeta, the man hadn't actually even born that far away. How different could they really be?

* * *

It was less than a week before Elizabeta found a job with another family. She was good at what she did and she was charming. Anyone would be a complete moron not to hire her, but there was always the fear of letting a stranger into your home. In regards to strangers, for his part, Gilbert eyed Roderich when he thought he wasn't looking.

He wasn't used to him. He felt like he wasn't even _getting_ used to him. By choice, Gilbert usually surrounded himself with people who were more like himself: reckless, enthusiastic about life, loud. The loudest thing Roderich did was playing the piano. Gilbert roamed as best he could while Roderich played, but there was nothing else to do in the small house. So, he often found himself stationed not far behind Roderich's bench, trying to get him to lose focus.

Talking while he was playing was strictly out of the question. Roderich had at once informed him that he was very well acquainted with wheelchairs, and that if Gilbert ever spoke while he was playing again, he would remove the wheels and leave him stranded facing the corner until Elizabeta returned home. Gilbert had scoffed loudly, but even so, he didn't speak while Roderich was playing anymore. He had plenty to say afterwards and before, and this irked the Austrian, but obviously not as much. Perhaps it meant something different to the musician, to have him speak while he should be listening. Gilbert wasn't about to ask him, he was in the middle of a lengthy piece.

This particular composition was becoming familiar. Gilbert occasionally tried to make a point of not listening, but, contrary to Roderich's accusations, he was no barbarian. The complex, flowing music did occasionally win him over, and he would sit quietly with his eyes closed or turned towards the window while the melodies swept through the room.

Roderich's playing was flawless. Sometimes he referred to this activity as "practicing", but Gilbert couldn't spot a single mistake in his fluid movements. He was hesitant to actually watch him play, until he realized, with a disbelieving gasp, that Roderich played with his eyes mostly closed. Gilbert, embarrassed that sometimes he couldn't even perform memorized tasks with his eyes closed, watched in awe until the piece ended with a few seemingly lazy movements of his right hand, and then Roderich's eyes reopened. Feeling as though he was still under the spell of the music, Gilbert didn't avert his gaze, and the man sitting before him eventually cast a cautious glance towards him.

Purple eyes. Gilbert wanted to stare into those eyes until he had them memorized. And he had every intention to, until Roderich blinked, and looked away. Only then was Gilbert shocked enough to realize how hard he had been staring at him. There was even a faint blush upon Roderich's pale cheeks, and Gilbert's eyes widened for fear he had offended him worse than speaking while he was playing.

There was a testing silence.

Roderich's gaze eventually returned to him, and he tilted his head. "Did you enjoy the piece?"

He blinked stupidly as they resumed staring at each other. The light blush faded quickly and was replaced by an eyebrow quirked up in annoyance. For some reason it made Gilbert feel like smiling, and he managed to clear his throat and bring his mind back from wherever it had been.

"Uh, sure." he tried to shrug nonchalantly, assuming that the Austrian would be upset that he wasn't moved and awed by the composition.

However, he didn't begin to scold him. Instead, he simply tossed his dark hair, his eyes closing and reopening almost in slow motion.

"It's a start then." he said simply and turned back to the ivory keys.

Gilbert stared in surprise at the dark coat covering his back.

"A start for _what_?" he demanded.

Roderich might have chuckled, or maybe he was hearing things, but before he could decide the musician quickly flipped the page and began another song without giving him an answer.

Angry that his plan to irritate Roderich had backfired, he sighed loudly, but moved away when the Austrian's eyebrow quirked back up. He wheeled himself over to the bookcase. There wasn't a single book on it he hadn't read. Except for the massive, dusty tomes on the very bottom shelf. Gilbert couldn't even remember what they were about, he only remembered that he had once asked his grandfather why they were there, and had been told that they were being used as a weight to keep the bookshelf from tipping over.

He scanned the familiar titles without interest. However, after a few more minutes, Roderich stopped playing and let out a sharp breath of annoyance.

Had he made a mistake? Gilbert hadn't heard anything that sounded out of place. He glanced behind him to see the dark haired man irritably sifting through his sheet music.

"Lose your place?" Gilbert inquired, maybe with a hint of honest curiosity, but it sounded more like a taunt than anything, and when the Austrian's head whipped up and glowered at him, that was apparently exactly how he took it.

The anger in his eyes cooled to embers, and flicked from him to the bookshelf.

"Trying to entertain yourself with literature won't work if you can't read." he scoffed.

Gilbert laughed at the prissiness of that insult, absently yanking one of the books off the shelf and examining it. "Books are good for lots other things than reading. Like for projectiles."

"You wouldn't dare!" he snapped at him as though he were a disobedient child.

Hell, maybe that was all he'd ever been.

"Wouldn't I?" he winked, grinning widely before cracking the book open and scanning the pages as though he did in fact intend to read it, rather than, say, throw it at the musician's head when he wasn't looking.

The heat of Roderich's glare was burning the side of his face. It made him want to grin impossibly wider. Something about pissing him off cheered Gilbert up. In a weird kind of way, he was sure he'd answer for that someday.

But, today was not that day, so he even began to hum a light tune while he continued feign-reading the book in his lap finally. When Gilbert's falsely peacefully act unnerved Roderich completely, he sighed loudly in aggravated defeat, throwing his hands up theatrically, and then stood up and walked out of the room and into the kitchen.

"I'm making lunch." he huffed as he walked passed him.

Gilbert did his best to hold his composure until the musician had stormed out, but then he laughed loud enough for the neighbors to hear. He quietly thought to himself that he might actually like having someone like Roderich stuck in the house with him all day. If he had teased someone like Elizabeta or his brother this much, he would have gotten hit by now, even with his injured leg still healing.

That thought forced him to sigh when his amusement subsided. He stared down at his legs, one of which was wrapped up in a blanket for the lack of pants, and the other which was wrapped up in bandages still. More than anything, he wanted to stretch them out, the muscles ached as they slowly came undone. Gilbert had spent the better part of the previous night poking at his good leg, which had once been nearly solid with thick muscles, and was now rather squishy and weak-looking. As soon as he could stand, he would exercise every day so he wouldn't have to be on crutches for very long. The wheelchair was bad enough.

The thought crossed his mind that the man who shot him was still probably fighting the good fight on the field without him, but that thought came unexpectedly coupled with the notion that he could very well be dead by now. It had been a while since Gilbert had come home, and there was no such thing as a safe place on a battlefield.

Gilbert shook his head, not really wanting to think about that now, and sighed again, this time at the book he had been using as a prop. It was boring. He had read it before, and even then, he had never really liked it. So, he set it back on the shelf and maneuvered himself around. He rolled to the window, a new habit of his, checking to see if anything had changed within the last few hours. Nothing. The trees were bare and dead-looking. He used to tell Ludwig that they slept through the winter and that if he kicked them hard enough they'd wake up and be so mad they would try to eat him. Even to up to the day they were preparing to leave, his little brother never so much as nudged a tree without its leaves.

Noticing that the noises from the kitchen had stopped, Gilbert moved away from the window and headed into the kitchen to investigate. As he entered, he saw that the food was still halfway made, but that Roderich was sitting down at the table, staring at the floor.

"Oi, Specs," he called.

His head jerked up, his dark hair ruffling as he quickly turned to look at him, pushing his glasses farther up his nose and coughing in surprise.

"What?" he awkwardly snapped at him.

"Er, what's wrong?" he asked, rolling the wheelchair over the threshold slowly as to bring himself fully into the room.

Roderich looked away, holding his right arm with his left hand, almost like a shy child. "It's…nothing."

Gilbert glanced at the counter where he had been preparing lunch, looking for signs of anything that had gone wrong. But no, there was no blood or knives, or anything hot for him to have burned himself on. There was no mess on the table or floor indicating he had dropped anything. Had he been wounded at all? Gilbert didn't spot anything dangerous, but the way the Austrian sat, forsaking his normally rigid posture to slump over himself slightly, his legs together and one of his arms holding his body, convinced the German soldier that he was injured.

"Where are you hurt?" he asked, his voice a bit stronger.

Sometimes, there were soldiers who wouldn't tell anyone when they were wounded. They would try to fix it themselves, or would just hide it under their clothes. Infections spread faster that way, but it was always the soldier who suffered the most. If they didn't die, sometimes doctors would have to amputate entire limbs just because of a cut or burn. Gilbert was no doctor, but he couldn't help Roderich at all if he didn't tell him what was wrong.

And yet, he remained silent, and continued to stare at an invisible point between his shoes.

Then it occurred to Gilbert that perhaps he hadn't injured himself, but perhaps he was sick. The cold months in Germany could be harsh, even for people who had lived there their entire lives, and Roderich had come from places farther south. Perhaps he wasn't accustomed yet.

"Do you have a fever?" he pressed, moved even closer enough he was within range to simply reach out and feel his forehead himself.

He began to raise his hand when there was no answer, but then Roderich sat up a bit and shook his head.

"No, no, it's not like that," he muttered, still forcefully avoiding eye contact.

Gilbert frowned. "Well, what is it then? Are you sick?"

Roderich suddenly took a deep breath and drew himself up to full height, putting him back into his normal posture as his hands folded in his lap and his feet flattened on the floor.

"No. I am not sick." he said pointedly, again adjusting his glasses on his nose. "But, I was."

"…You, were sick? Did making lunch make you sick?" he asked, confused.

He shook his head. "I was sick a long time ago. Years and years ago."

Gilbert just stared with his eyebrows furrowed, since obviously he wasn't good at this guessing game.

For a while, it seemed like he had no intention of tell him what had happened, but when Gilbert made no move to leave, he swallowed and glanced at him.

"I was in a wheelchair for a few years when I was younger." he said and then turned his face away, as if expecting scorn.

Gilbert simply raised his eyebrows.

_Years?_

He could hardly stand being confined to the device for a few months. Gilbert couldn't imagine not being able to walk for years.

As he thought about this, however, he realized that Roderich _had_ mentioned being knowledgeable about wheelchairs. He also sat much more than he stood or walked, and Elizabeta had made a dismissive comment about his inability to clean very much. He had assumed this was because he avoided these things by choice, but, perhaps he was simply too weak?

His expression must have conveyed his conclusion because when Roderich eventually turned back and looked at him again, he just nodded solemnly.

Gilbert coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm, sorry. Don't worry about lunch or anything, I can reach-"

Roderich tilted his head to the side slightly, a faint, sad smile touching his lips. "I can still make us lunch, it just takes me a while, sometimes."

"Then, I'll stay," he told him, looking back at the counter when Roderich's eyes began to soften. "You know, to make sure you don't ruin the food or anything."

To his credit, the Austrian gasped in an offended manner, which reestablished the normal mood between them. He then stood and went back to the counter, preparing food in the same fashion that he played music in; his hands moving smoothly and fluently as he worked, as if he were continuously creating art. But this time, Gilbert noticed that as he finished, his hands were shaking as though he had lifted something heavy. He frowned, and decided that he would help more with the housework, not that he would say anything about it.

They ate together at the kitchen table. Gilbert complained that the food was gross, Roderich complained that Gilbert was gross, and all together their meal was a pleasant one. After that, it became something of a routine for Gilbert to wait in the kitchen while Roderich cooked. If he had to sit down to rest, the wounded soldier made no comment about it. Instead, he made an effort to distract him, occasionally going as far as to ask about pieces he had heard him play earlier in the day. Roderich was utterly convinced that listening to his music would help Gilbert heal, which made him roll his eyes.

However, even _if_ he had maybe begun to enjoy more of what Roderich played, the music was gaining attention beyond the two of them, and outside their door was a darkening world.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Gilbert wasn't even on his crutches for a week before he found new ways to annoy Roderich. The German eagerly moved around while he played, and the slight scraping and tapping of his awkward walking constantly irritated him, throwing his mental meter off and making him lose his focus. Still, somehow, seeing Gilbert so happy made him feel just a little bit better now that Elizabeta was gone most of the day. Sometimes, she didn't even come home at night, and it wouldn't be until early the next day that they saw her again. It was dangerous for her to walk so far in the dark, and he was relieved that the family she worked for didn't mind that she stayed, but, he still remembered the first night she wasn't able to make it home.

She had warned them a few times that since the days were getting shorter, and the sun fell sooner, she would eventually run into trouble making it home before dark. They both agreed that they would rather her stay safe with her employers than risk anything happening on a dark side street, but when it actually happened, when she didn't come home and he eventually had to stand up and bolt the door, the entire house suddenly felt strange. Gilbert had watched him for a moment, and then they both just stared at their feet, and then the window, and then random objects around the room.

The house felt empty, cold. Roderich had become aware of the distance between the walls, of the chill that crept in beneath the windowsill, and of the oppressive quiet. Deafening silence. It made his skin crawl.

They had eventually retired to bed that night, but each time Elizabeta didn't return by sundown, there was tension in the house. Fear, uncertainty. They wouldn't speak of it, but Roderich knew that Gilbert feared the worst. He could tell by the way his mouth would twitch and how his fingers would curl anxiously for no reason other than what was going on inside his mind. Roderich had always had a knack for reading people once he got to know them a little, and he knew when Gilbert wasn't feeling safe. He felt safe when Elizabeta was around, he felt safe when the sun was up, but once night fell and she was gone, Gilbert was forced to face how vulnerable they really were. Although the German could walk now, sort of, he wasn't in any condition to do anything more than gimp from one side of the house to the other slowly and carefully, and Roderich wasn't strong enough to defend anybody from much of anything.

He had been stronger once, before his time spent in a wheelchair. He was a child back then, of course, but he had been one of the best fighters of all his classmates. They fought behind the school when they thought no one would catch them, and after only a few fist fights, there was no one else who wished to challenge him. It all changed, however, and his time being forced to sit motionless in that small wheelchair eventually mellowed him. It taught him to watch more, to listen more. Still, none of that made him feel any better when Elizabeta was gone for the night, and they both retired, having to face the dark silence of the empty house.

However, Roderich never awoke wondering if Elizabeta had made it home safely, at least. By the time the sun roused him, he could already smell breakfast downstairs, and any clothing he had left scattered around his room had been meticulously put away, for which he'd be later scolded, and later forget.

It was on a morning like this that the Austrian yawned widely, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he sat up and stretched. His bed was warm, and soft, and inviting, and the room was cold. He desperately wished to hide under the covers and go back to sleep, but his stomach demanded breakfast, and he knew better than to ignore Elizabeta's cooking. Especially since Gilbert had been able to move around more he seemed to be able to work up more of an appetite, and so Roderich had been worrying for his own portion of each meal lately.

He sighed, eventually forcing himself up off the bed, and setting his feet down on the cold, unforgiving floor. Roderich changed his clothes, not realizing he had again left his nightclothes on the floor exactly where Elizabeta would tell him not to leave them, and cleaned up before heading downstairs.

Elizabeta was in the kitchen; her were eyes bright for it being so early in the morning. Roderich sat down at the table and she kindly brought him a cup of coffee since it appeared that the food wasn't quite ready yet. Gilbert wasn't in the kitchen yet either, but he noticed that Elizabeta wasn't going to go help him out of bed. He almost smiled, imagining Gilbert shooing her away while he fumbled with his crutches, and when there was a slight commotion down the hall, Roderich and Elizabeta exchanged an amused glance.

Gilbert gimped into the kitchen a few minutes later, still in his pajamas, looking tired, but simultaneously excited, somehow.

"Is breakfast ready yet?" he asked eagerly, taking a seat across from Roderich while the Austrian looked at him over the rim of his glasses.

"No. Don't ask again." Elizabeta warned him, holding up a metal spatula threateningly when he opened his mouth to complain, proving that she was, in fact, much more tired than she appeared.

Gilbert made a face, groaning dramatically anyway when his stomach growled, but she looked over at him again and he silenced himself. Roderich hid a smile as he took another drink of his coffee.

Elizabeta was much more reserved and ladylike now, but that was not how he always remembered her, and seeing how she was with Gilbert often triggered his older memories of his cousin. For every kid Roderich had ever fought, Elizabeta had beaten three more. She had been rough, rambunctious, and a little out of control. It wasn't until they grew older and things began to change that she changed, but even so, something inside of him was pleased to see that she still retained her original nature.

Once breakfast had been cooked, served, and eaten, Elizabeta retired to the upstairs bedroom to wash and rest. During this time, both of the men left down stairs were to remain as quiet as possible, even while Roderich cleaned the kitchen, which took him much longer since he had to rest himself every so often.

After the dishes were washed and put away, it wasn't very long before he became dreadfully bored. As he walked through the main room, Roderich's curiosity eventually got the better of him, and he wandered over to the old bookshelf. It was a little dusty, but Roderich ignored this for the moment and scanned the book titles instead.

He was mildly stunned to find that most of the books only dealt with history or war, although he noted the occasional outdated atlas. Roderich sighed, but supposed that he shouldn't really have been surprised; Gilbert's grandfather had been a solider as well, so these were the things he knew best. Still, he looked over the tomes longingly, wishing that, instead of war preoccupying the world, more people could concern themselves with art, with creating instead of destroying.

Still, distantly wishing for the world to be a better place wasn't doing him any immediate good, so when he tired of staring at the bookshelf, he habitually returned to the piano. Playing was strictly out of the question while his cousin was sleeping, but he fetched his small leather satchel which he kept his sheet music in, and sat down. He leafed through the familiar pages for a few minutes before sighing, and settling them down beside him on the bench. Beneath these he kept paper and a pen, so that he could write his own music, but it was always a painfully slow process. For all his wishful thinking, he was not actually very creative. He could learn, practice, and perform, but to create the raw material himself…he had never exactly had a knack for it.

His eyes scanned over what he had previously written, having to force himself not to crumple the paper and throw it on the floor, and instead tried to add to it, to continue the piece. He shut his eyes, trying to listen to what he could hear inside himself. It seemed that always, in the background mind, there was music playing. He often caught himself humming unfamiliar tunes, but he could only catch snippets of them before they were gone, unable to be remembered, like a dream. Breathing deeper, he tried to quite the rest of his noisy thoughts, searching for that beautiful music that seemed to hide in the dark depths of the deepest regions of his mind. The sweet melodies teased his senses, becoming only clear enough to make him strain for them before disappearing again. It was enough to make Roderich feel as though he were trying to catch shadows in the water.

Eventually, his irritation outgrew his desire, and he sighed crossly, opening his eyes and setting the paper and pen aside. He traded it for the sheet music that actually contained music, and looked over them with a strange feeling that seemed to be a mixture of failure and relief. He didn't have much longer to ponder in silence, however, because Elizabeta came down the stairs, and Roderich blinking in surprise at the clock against the wall. It was already noon.

She breathed shortly at him, looking much more alert than before.

"Are you leaving now?" he asked, although he knew the answer.

Elizabeta nodded to him, glancing around for Gilbert, who had returned to his room earlier, and then sighed a bit. "I might not make it home again tonight."

Roderich glanced at the window, making a face at the darkening sky. "It looks like it might storm, anyway."

She looked like she wanted to approach him, but didn't. She also looked like she wanted to say more, but what was there to say? The lady of the house was the one who was forced to go to work to bring in any income. Roderich looked at her apologetically; she offered back a sad smile that nearly broke his heart.

"I'll try to make it back," she said, her voice sounding distant.

He was only able to nod before she took her coat and went to the door. Roderich watched her pass the window, her head bowed, hurrying down the street until she was out of sight. Then, he stood and locked the front door, his fingers lingering on the cold doorknob.

It was terrifying simply to think of the kind of world that laid just outside that door…

"Hey, Specs!"

Roderich nearly screamed, his body going ridged before he turned sharply. Gilbert was occupying the entrance to the hallway, a crutch under each arm, his injured leg bent slightly to keep it from hitting the ground. He hadn't even heard him leave his room that time.

"What?" he demanded, still not very fond of the nickname.

"You thinking about running away or something?" the German asked, eyes trying to hold his on a smirk, but eventually they broke and traveled down to stare at his hand, which was still touching the door.

Roderich removed the offending hand, allowing it to fall to his side. Honestly, he would have expected the soldier to encourage his departure, but perhaps it really seemed to Gilbert that he was leaving. It would be stupid on his part, but he wasn't sure what it would mean for the German, if he were to go.

"Not today." Roderich sniffed, but felt a small desire to smile understandingly at him. "You haven't pushed me to _that_ extreme…yet,"

Gilbert smirked at him, but his relief was obvious to Roderich, however he tried to hide it. It made him want to snicker at him for playing as such a tough soldier and then acting so soft, but, just this once, he refrained.

" _Yet,_ " the albino scoffed, looking down as he moved more into the room.

Roderich was amused, but now that Elizabeta was gone, he was once again able to play, and he greatly preferred that to the alternative, which would now be cleaning.

He returned to his seat at the piano, quickly organized his papers, and made sure he didn't wait for Gilbert to slide in any comments before he began playing. Roderich wasn't able to lose himself in his music, however, and he eventually became aware of a tenseness in his shoulders and back. He finished the piece, but then turned to make sure Gilbert wasn't doing anything strange. The young soldier had replaced the chair that Elizabeta had moved from the window, and was staring up at the cloudy sky. Perhaps it was the approaching storm…

He tried to shake it off and began again, but barely a minute in, his hand slipped, striking two notes out of sequence. This made Roderich's eyes snap open in irritation and he breathed hard through his nose.

When he turned to check on the German again, however, he realized he was gone from the seat, and was now gimping around the room idly, seeming to measure how many steps it took him to move from one edge of the rug to the other with the crutches. The tapping noise bothered him.

"Hey," he snapped, getting Gilbert to turn those ever-stunning eyes towards him and getting the tapping to halt. "If you're well enough to be moving, you ought to at least dust."

He scoffed and whined predictably. "I'm injured!"

"Not injured enough to say quiet, so be useful." the words came out perhaps a bit harsher than he'd meant, since Gilbert didn't respond aside from rolling his eyes.

With another short breath, he turned back to the pale keys, and tried to quiet his inner turbulence. He only partially succeeded, able to hear Gilbert moving around still. Roderich tried to convince himself that he had played through worse with him in the house, and shook his shoulders, setting himself up to start again.

Yet, before he could even begin, there was a soft clatter, and Roderich turned sharply, drawing in a breath to scold Gilbert for breaking his concentration, but those words never came out of his mouth.

Gilbert was stooping down to scoop up a small dusting cloth, his crutches clattering as they moved against the floor, and then the albino righted himself, and to Roderich's surprise, began dusting the bookcase. He dusted the shelves and the pictures at the very top, working his way down. Roderich stared in awe, his mouth agape, until Gilbert suddenly, and quite violently, sneezed.

He rubbed his nose on his sleeve, and then looked at the shelf again before sighing dramatically and turning to look at him.

"Cleaning is boring!" he declared.

"Yes," he did agree with that, but looked at the shelf. "But...you're already halfway finished,"

Gilbert turned and looked it over, glancing at Roderich with a slight frown on his lips, but again to his surprise, he resumed cleaning.

Just when he thought he had been coming to understand him…

* * *

For some reason unbeknownst to Roderich, Gilbert actually dusted almost the entire room, as well as his bedroom and the bathroom. For his part, he still wasn't really able to regain his focus enough to get through an entire piece without messing up at least once, but when Gilbert entered, proudly declaring that he was the master of cleaning before collapsing tiredly on the couch, Roderich smiled. He might not have understood him, but he was occasionally amusing, at least.

Once Gilbert was quietly resting on the couch, Roderich was able to play through a full piece. Finally, his mind seemed to back up, giving control purely to his muscles, which were somehow able to move better with his head out of the way. He played all the way to the last note without a single mistake, and then sighed and sat back, satisfied with his work.

While he was enjoying his feeling of accomplishment, he looked over to see if Gilbert was as impressed.

Roderich frowned; the only member of his audience had fallen asleep. However, before he could really be upset about him dozing off while he was playing again, he noticed something else.

The poor, injured man's brow was deeply furrowed, as though he were dreaming darkly. Roderich watched him for a moment with concern, waiting to see if the dream would pass, but he only grunted once and tossed his head, as though trying to look away from something.

He swallowed and looked down. He didn't want to wake him up, he liked Gilbert asleep, and he did need his rest, but he also didn't want to leave him at the mercy of nightmares he was sure he couldn't imagine. After a moment of silently debating with himself and gathering some amount of courage, he snatched up his sheet music and walked over to the couch, sitting stiffly next to Gilbert's head. He shuffled his papers for a moment, his heart beating faster, as though he were doing something wrong. There was nothing wrong about this, though, he just wanted to sit here because the couch was softer than the hard piano bench. That's all.

When Gilbert tossed his head again, Roderich looked down and saw that some of his hair had fallen in his face. Without thinking, he reached down and brushed it out of the way. Gilbert's brow smoothed out a bit, although, even asleep, he seemed startled by the touch. It made Roderich let out a soft breath of amusement; however, he didn't retract his fingers immediately. He was in turn surprised by the softness of the albino's white hair, and slowly combed his fingers through it, watching it sift and settle. He found that he rather liked Gilbert's hair.

He was content to secretly stroke it, but then those violently colored eyes peeked opened and he froze as they fixed on him immediately.

"Uh…I,"

"That son of a bitch shot me," he muttered sleepily.

Roderich smiled again, realizing that he wasn't actually awake.

However, he didn't simply close his eyes again, that would have been uncharacteristically calm of him. Instead, he suddenly pushed his body up on the couch, and rested his head on Roderich's lap. He jerked a bit in surprise, but watched Gilbert sigh as he settled again. The Austrian shook his head at him, but in a fit of weakness over how much calmer his face looked, Roderich reached behind him and pulled the blanket that had been draped over the back of the couch, using it to cover Gilbert as best as he could. By the time he got it settled over him, he already had concocted the lie that the blanket had simply fallen from the top of the couch and fell on him. It was ridiculous, sure, but he wasn't going to tell Gilbert what he had done. He would think it was okay for him to sleep in the living room while he was playing, and it most certainly wasn't.

Still, seeing Gilbert looking so much more relaxed somehow made the tension in his shoulders loosen a bit, and his fingers eventually found themselves playing in his hair again. It was so soft, and such a strange color. It even had a soft glimmer to it, like a metallic sheen. As he brushed it away from his face, Roderich's eyes slowly scanned over his facial features, which he had come to know at a distance, but upon closer inspection, found that there were things about his appearance he had never noticed before.

There was a small scar on the right side of his upper lip, possibly from where it had once been split on his teeth by a hard set of knuckles. There was also a small scar to the side of his cheek that looked like a small burn, perhaps. His eyebrows were the same color as his hair, but somehow still managed to define his brow well. Roderich smoothed the fine hairs of each brow, smiling at their neatness. Although Gilbert had many bad habits, he kept up on his hygiene surprisingly well. No gross breath, no bushy eyebrows, and no bad body odors. In fact, while they were so close, Roderich through that he actually smelled rather nice, and absently wondered if it was some kind of aftershave, although he didn't dare lean closer to smell, lest Gilbert awaken with him in a position so compromising that he wouldn't be able to talk his way out.

Instead, his eyes continued down his face, noting his straight, sharp nose that was upturned to a factional degree at the very tip. He let his finger slide down it, smiling in amusement when it twitched slightly. His cheekbones were high, but not so high as to make him look feminine, or scheming, but just high enough to give him a sense of youthfulness; however, this effect was considerably lessened while he was sleeping. Instead, he looked older, and Roderich absently noted a few creases that would eventually be deep wrinkles. Many of them were in the same places as his grandfather. Roderich sighed, and shook the thought.

His eyes swept down his smooth, pale cheeks to his chin, which rounded softly at the bottom of his jaw. Then, he looked at his lips, which had twitched a couple time since he had been looking him over. They looked thinner from far away, but that was due to their pale color that nearly matched the rest of his skin. Up close, they were fuller, not pouty, it wouldn't have fit his set features, but they weren't so thin. They looked soft.

Curiously, he let a single finger slowly extend until it just brushed his bottom lip. They were indeed soft, but when this caused Gilbert to suddenly take a deeper breath, he snatched his hand back as though he had been electrocuted. He didn't wake up, so after a moment of holding his breath, Roderich sighed quietly and returned to playing with his hair. After all, he was certain he couldn't get back up without waking him, and it had been his original mission to keep that from happening.

Although his examination had been interesting, seeing Gilbert sleeping so peacefully on his lap eventually began to make him feel drowsy himself, and a little while later when the German awoke, he woke up to Roderich leaning back against the couch, fast asleep with his hand still placed near his hair.

* * *

It had been a week and a half since Gilbert had woken up on Roderich's lap, but he still felt his cheeks tint red with embarrassment at the thought. He wasn't sure how they had gotten into such a compromising position, but when Elizabeta had come home and he awoke, she had simply smirked at him. Afterwards, he was careful to avoid her, but she snickered at him anyway, and she knew he heard it.

Roderich, for his noble part, didn't act any differently. He didn't seem to notice Elizabeta teasing Gilbert, nor did he comment on the German's newfound awkwardness when they drew too close together. The Austrian seemed completely oblivious to the entire situation, and carried on just the same as he had been.

What the hell did that mean?

Was Gilbert supposed to do the same, pretend as though nothing strange had happened at all? Clearly they weren't going to say anything about it, but still, his throat tightening and his cheeks growing hot were symptoms of that weren't appearing to lessen with time. A week and a half later with no one speaking about it, and Gilbert still found himself flustered to sit too close to Roderich during meals.

Whatever the reason, it was beyond him. Elizabeta smiled at him strangely though, even when she wasn't taunting him. She smiled like she knew something he didn't…

The fucking people he lived with.

The nights were still rough, however. And in spite of how the Hungarian irked him, when she didn't come home by nightfall, he couldn't deny how strange it still felt. She seemed to balance their small home, and when she was gone, Gilbert lied in bed feeling as though the entire house was teetering on the edge of a cliff. Sometimes, this fear became so real that he feared to roll over in bed, lest he would give it that concluding push and they would finally fall down into a dark abyss to be smashed against unseen rocks.

To say he felt on edge would be a gross understatement.

Those were the nights he slept the worst.

Some nights Elizabeta came home right on time, her hair slightly frizzed and dark circles beneath her eyes. She rarely spoke to them, and if she did, Gilbert couldn't understand any of it, but as soon as she was safely inside, the house's foundation seemed to be again built on solid ground. This always helped him to sleep better.

Still, sometimes as soon as this fear was taken care of, others surfaced in Gilbert's mind. Inside his head had never been his favorite place, but perhaps that was his own fault. Perhaps he should have spent more time there, then maybe it wouldn't be so dark and unfamiliar.

As Gilbert lied in bed, he heard Elizabeta scolding Roderich not to leave his clothes all over the room, and allowed his eyes to shut. She was here, and so was that odd Austrian. They were all together. He wasn't alone.

Despite his attempts at comforting himself, as soon as everything fell silent, he glanced at the bedroom door. He was alone. He was alone in his room, and in his mind. He didn't want that, but the darkness closed around him, and he knew there was nothing that could be done. Not tonight.

He had bared witness to so many awful things; things that made his senses cringe into himself. In the oppressive darkness, it was hard to convince himself that these things were in the past, and not in his room. Fearful thoughts of dying men strewn about the floor invaded his immediate mind, and he tugged himself away from the edges of the bed, fearful they might try to grab him and pull him down with them. Down to hell.

War was hell. The battlefield was hell, not some fiery pits far beneath the earth, and maybe he was supposed to have died there. Perhaps that shot was meant to kill him…no one cheats death. No one escapes. He had to remember to breathe.

The house creaked as it cooled in the night, and Gilbert's entire body stiffened on a burst of adrenaline. It didn't clear his mind anymore as it had done when he was fighting. Instead, it only fueled his terrifying hallucinations.

He tried to breathe deeper, shutting his eyes tightly and attempting to clear his mind of any further thoughts. Gilbert was successful for a moment, but then there was another creak. Only, this time it came from down the hall. He nearly bolted upright in his bed, the noise sounding as though someone was standing at the very end of the hall, where that damned door had been shut and locked and left alone since.

Left alone physically, anyway. His mind's favorite way to torture him was with nightmares of that door. During the day he could ignore it, he could avoid looking at it or thinking about it, but at night, he somehow became hyperaware of its presence at the end of the hall, sealing off his grandfather's room. He tried not to think about that room. He couldn't remember the wall color or how it was decorated anymore anyway; after so many nightmares, he was certain that nothing but darkness filled that room.

Sometimes he dreamed that there was something inside that he couldn't see, something that would move inside the room when the door opened, but sometimes there was just nothing. When there was nothing, he would fall into the void, the light from the hallway fading away from him as he tumbled endlessly into nothingness.

The less sleep he got, the worse these nightmares progressively came until he would sleep through an entire day before being able to get out of bed. These nightmares often included bizarre images of being in public places where no one would look at him or speak to him, even if he approached them. They would move around him like he wasn't even there. The only way to get out of these places was through a door. It would always be a different door, but when he approached it, it would change, by the time he grasped the handle, he would open the door to his grandfather's bedroom, and the darkness inside would consume him.

Unable to relax, the German swallowed hard, and tugged his blankets closer. Gilbert suspected this was what awaited him tonight.

* * *

The sun finally roused him, and he met it eagerly. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat that smelt like fear, and he was breathing raggedly. His assumption had been correct, and the nightmare left his stomach feeling squishy and his muscles feeling weak. Still, now that the room was lit up with a warm light, he felt his body relax. The floor was devoid of bodies, the house was not on the edge of a cliff, and, as he heard Elizabeta in the kitchen and Roderich stirring upstairs, he knew he wasn't alone.

Gilbert said a silent prayer and then climbed out of bed with the help of his crutches that he had strategically placed against the nightstand. His leg screamed in pain when he tried to stretch it, his body ached with tiredness, and his eyes burned a little, but he was glad to be up again. Even if he hadn't been plagued by nightmares, he had always been a morning person, anyway.

He washed up and changed, eager to get rid of the smell of sweat, and then faced himself in the mirror. He looked smaller now. His muscles had gone soft, and he didn't eat nearly as much has he could have before. The exercise from finally being up on crutches helped, but he had lost a considerable amount of weight. It made the bones in his face look a little sharper and his eyes a little hollower. He grimaced, watching the reflection frown back at him. He didn't like being in this state, being weak and in pain and afraid. His stomach growled loudly in disregard to his thoughts, and he sighed before leaving the washroom. He also didn't like being hungry, but he knew of a way to fix that, at least.

He arrived in the kitchen before Roderich, and took his seat at the table while Elizabeta greeted him tiredly. Gilbert tried to greet her back, but a yawn interrupted his words. He watched her while she cooked, the smell making his stomach growl twice more before she chuckled quietly and made him a plate. They both smiled at each other, but when he looked down, his throat felt cold.

The food still smelt good, but the thought of actually trying to chew and swallow anything made the corners of his mouth droop. This happened sometimes, but he was afraid that if he tried to just force himself to eat, he would throw up and he was determined not to let that happen again.

Before enough time passed for Elizabeta to scold him for not eating her cooking however, Roderich entered the kitchen and sat down. He didn't nearly as tired as they did, even though he gave a small yawn, which he covered with the back of his hand.

Gilbert hadn't realized it, but his face had lifted a bit.

"You look awful." Roderich told him plainly when their eyes met.

Those purple eyes…

To his own surprise, Gilbert cracked a grin and laughed a little. But before he could retort, Elizabeta looked over at him and held up the knife she was using as a warning, and he simply shoveled a fork-full of food into his mouth. And just like that, his appetite returned, and he was able to eat his entire breakfast without stopping.

Elizabeta sat beside them as she brought Roderich a plate too, and despite their collective exhaustion, the morning felt like the preamble to a fairly good day.

* * *

Before Elizabeta left, Gilbert had placed himself near the window again. The sky was growing dark, it would probably rain before evening. He had never minded the rain itself, but it would be darker earlier, and Elizabeta was unlikely to return home.

A few black birds flew overhead and he sighed. Well, shit.

Roderich didn't seem concerned with anything beyond the piano, and after a little while, Gilbert turned his back on the increasingly gloomy scene outside, and watched the musician instead. By now, he knew what he was playing, and tapped on the chair absently to the tune. The music filled the house gently, but it seemed to Gilbert that it created something like a bubble around them, and inside the bubble, it was warm and bright, even if outside was cold and dark. He wouldn't say he completely relished in the finicky Austrian banging on the instrument all day every day, but, since there was nothing to do about it, he allowed himself to relax into the complex melodies he crafted. He didn't understand music the way he was sure Roderich did, but when he played he didn't feel he needed to, he could enjoy it in his own way.

When the piece was over, Roderich cast a glance over his shoulder at him.

"Gilbert."

His ears perked up and he arched an eyebrow. "…Yeah?"

"Do you think—?" the Austrian was interrupted by a loud clap of thunder, and a flash of lightening lit the room up white.

Gilbert jerked in surprise much harder than he would have expected of himself, and found that the loud noise left his hands trembling slightly. He attempted to hide this by balling them into weak fists on his lap, but when he looked to Roderich again, he saw that the musician was visibly shaken as well.

"Hm." he frowned at the window, his lips set in a firm line.

"What?" Gilbert asked, following his gaze, but upon seeing nothing on interest beyond the window, looked back at him.

"…Bad luck," he murmured scornfully before standing and stretching a little, then his voice changed volume as though he were addressing an unseen audience. "I'm going to make lunch."

The German watched him with a puzzled expression. The hell…?

He heard a faint drumming, like soft fingers tapping on the glass, and when he looked again to the window, he saw that the rain was beginning to fall. If he hadn't been injured, he thought he might have stepped out for a moment to feel the rain, but a violent gust of wind wracked the house and rain slanted sharply to the side, and this thought faded.

Bad luck, huh? Maybe this wasn't going to be as good of a day as he had hoped

 


	5. Chapter 5

Night fell upon their small home, but the rain continued regardless. It pounded loudly against the roof and the side of the house, and the wind howled loudly all around them. Gilbert found he felt the house was one the verge of tipping and falling from the edge of a cliff, even though he hadn't gone to bed yet. He was firmly seated on the couch, glancing around nervously. There was no way Elizabeta was going to make it home tonight, it was too dark and the rain was coming down too hard, but he couldn't bring his trembling muscles to take him to bed. Something just felt wrong.

And this time, he knew it wasn't just in his own head. Roderich was fretfully pacing from the main room to the kitchen and back. He would pause to look out the window or glance at the bookshelf, but Gilbert was certain he wasn't seeing anything other than his own thoughts. He wasn't doing any better, really.

"She'll be alright," Roderich told him firmly.

After a moment, he nodded. "Yeah. She'll be fine. It's just a storm."

"Yes. Only a storm." he agreed, looking at the window before sighing and looking at the kitchen. "Are…are you thirsty? Do you need anything?"

He tilted his head, offering a small smile, but refrained from teasing the normally stuck-up musician. "Water would be awesome,"

Roderich nodded to him, a bit of tension seeming to relax in his eyes. They softened, warmed a bit even, and he held his gaze for a moment longer. His lips parted slightly, as though he was about to speak. Gilbert found himself staring at him intensely, perhaps too intensely, and Roderich never did say anything back. Instead, his mouth closed again, but the corners of his lips curved upwards slightly, giving him a small smile before heading back to the kitchen.

As soon as he was gone, Gilbert shook his head hard. He wasn't sure if he was just seeing things now, or if Roderich was suffering the effects of powerful unease, too. Either way, all he knew was that his stomach felt strange.

Before he could contemplate this feeling, however, there was a loud, sudden knock at the door and it seemed as though everything stopped.

He could almost hear Roderich freeze in place in the kitchen, and his heart froze in his chest. Elizabeta? There was no way…

He had to find out. Something told him he shouldn't, it might have been Roderich, but he stood anyway. He slung his crutches, a powerful reminded of how feeble his state truly was, beneath his arms, and approached the door. A louder set of knocks shook the wood visibly. It was followed by a forceful, authoritative voice demanding that, in the name of the law, he was to open the door.

Gilbert was certain his eyes couldn't have grown any wider.

Oh, _shit._ Roderich…

He had no time to hide him, they hadn't even set up a plan for anything like this. He wanted to kick himself, in his hurt leg. His grandfather would have had them set up a plan, they would have had a place for him to hide. But no, they hadn't prepared for anything, and now, Roderich had nowhere to go to escape, and all that separated Gilbert from the authorities was a few inches of wood, and about a foot of air.

God, help them all.

The second time the man shouted, the order came with a threat to bust down the door. Gilbert drew in as deep a breath as his constricting lungs would allow, and unlocked the door. Almost before he could drop his hand from the lock to the knob, the door swung open.

Gilbert stepped back and beheld the sight of three armed men in grey uniforms. Their eyes were cold and empty, and the one in front glared hard at him from under the glossy-rimed hat, which was protecting him from the pouring rain.

He swallowed hard, but fell back on his old mannerisms, and smiled at them.

"Sorry about that wait, officers, but," he glanced down at his leg. "This thing isn't what it used to be."

The man directly facing him followed his gaze down, but his expression didn't change, nor did he respond.

Gilbert cleared his throat. "Well, how can I help you?"

"We have received reports regarding illegal activity at this residence," the man's eyes didn't even seem to reflect the light from inside the house. "We will need to search the premises."

Before Gilbert could do anything other than open his mouth, all three men entered the house, the lead officer remaining in front of Gilbert, blocking the door, and the other two immediately separating to check the house.

"Wait," he began.

"Why?" the officer before him snapped hard, glaring at him as he shut and locked the door behind him without looking.

"I—"

" _Get your hands off me!_ "

Gilbert's throat went dry.

Roderich appeared suddenly as he was violently shoved into the main room, although the officer beside him kept a firm grip on his upper arm. The air seemed to burn in Gilbert's chest. He wanted to shout at them, to threaten them, maybe to fight them, but he was in no condition to do anything of those things. He could only watch as the nightmarish scene unfolded before him.

"Where are his papers?" the man beside Gilbert asked.

Roderich simply folded his arms and sniffed, raising his chin at him defiantly without saying a word. Somehow, he didn't look frightened in the least. He still looked as though he owned everything he saw, even the dark-eyed men before him. Noble. Gilbert had never felt so impressed with the musician.

"Identification papers? Legal documentation?" the man taunted knowingly, stepping closer. "Anything?"

Roderich held eye contact with the approaching officer unwaveringly, but kept his head held high. He wouldn't answer them. On the other hand, what could he say?

"Hm." The officer turned his head, scoffing shamefully at Gilbert, before turning around fully. "Bring him."

The two other men both took an arm, even though Roderich flinched away from them, but before they could begin to drag him out of the house, Gilbert's voice suddenly filled the room in a loud shout.

"Wait!"

To his surprise, everyone did. All eyes in the room fell on him, and they were silent.

"Just, wait." he said, and quickly crossed the room, heading down the hallway as fast as he could on his awkward crutches.

He could hear a few murmurs behind him, but he couldn't focus enough to figure out what they were saying. He had to hurry. He had to get _something_. The only thing he could think of was his grandmother's old jewelry box. It was beautiful, but it was also valuable. If anything would work, it would be that.

As he hurried down the hallway however, an intense sickness swept over him, and a cold sweat broke out all over his body. He stared at the door. That door. That fucking door. He had to; he had no choice. If he didn't, they would take Roderich for sure, and he knew damn well that if he let that happen, he would never see him again.

Somehow, this knowledge slowly began to overpower his fears. He could do it. He would do it. He wasn't going to let them take Roderich away from him.

He was suddenly in front of the door. He swallowed hard, and with trembling hands, took the key from its place above the threshold, and jammed it into the lock. It turned easily. Almost too easily. It made him feel like he couldn't breathe, and when he grasped the handle, his hands were so sweaty that he almost couldn't grip it.

Behind him, he heard the men grumble again. They wouldn't wait much longer. He had to do it, now.

With a violent shove, he twisted the cold handle, and threw the door open. The room was dark, so dark he almost screamed, but then he saw the light from the hallway spill onto the wood floor, and without waiting for his mind to catch up, his body moved him over the threshold, and he entered the room. He turned on the light, almost out of habit, and just like that, his grandfather's room appeared before him, just as it had been left. As quaint and welcoming as it had always been. And on the dressed beside the door, he saw the jewelry box.

He lunged for it.

Inside, there was still the same gold and silver necklaces and bracelets he remembered not being allowed to touch as a child. His eyes checked these things hurriedly, but then as he began to turn, they locked on a pair of plain, unadorned, golden rings, and he hesitated.

He couldn't let them have those. He removed them, and set them on the nightstand before hurrying out of the room, and gimping back down the hallway as fast as he could. He reentered the room to find that they had begun to drag Roderich out, but stopped when they saw what he held.

"Please," he panted as he held it out to the officer that appeared to be in charge, sweat covering his body, his chest heaving from his panic and rush down the hallway. "Please."

For a moment, the officer looked at him with shame and scorn in his eyes, but then those dark eyes dropped greedily to the ornate box in his possession, and he held out his hand. Gilbert hobbled forward another few steps and handed it to him. Roderich still looked just as he had left him, albeit slightly more put out since his arms had been squeezed in a painful grip since the men had arrived. Gilbert looked back at the man apprehensively.

_Please,_ he chanted over and over in his mind. _Please, God, let it be enough._

The officer inspected the jewelry box almost lazily, opening it and sifting its contents around with his fingers with an unimpressed expression. Gilbert swallowed anxiously, trying to suppress his desperate breathing.

Finally, the man snapped the lid shut sharply, and fixed Gilbert with a hard stare. They held eye contact for a tense moment, and then he sighed in an almost annoyed way, and nodded to the other two officers before tucking the box into his heavy coat.

"Very well." he said, and the other two officers released Roderich immediately, with indifferent expressions.

As they moved back towards the door, however, the man looked at Gilbert again.

"But don't expect this kind of leniency if we receive another report." he warned ominously, fixing Roderich with a venomous look before finally opening the door, and disappearing back into the stormy night.

As soon as the door shut, Gilbert hurried to it and locked it tightly. Then, he moved to the windows and check outside to make sure they were gone. As soon as he was certain the dark, rainy street was empty, he shut the curtains and backed away, turning out the lights as he went until the only light in the room was the faint glow from the hallway, and the room at the very end. Once the main room was mostly dark, Gilbert stopped fussing around the room, he looked to Roderich, who hadn't moved since the officers left.

Once their eyes met, the Austrian suddenly let out a shaky breath and fell to his knees, his arms closing around himself tightly, finally displaying a reaction to the fear of what had happened, and what could have happened. On an impulse, Gilbert quickly moved over to him, dropping his crutches and lowering himself down next to him less than fluently.

As soon as they were side by side, Roderich suddenly crumpled further, letting out another breath and half collapsing against Gilbert. The German held him up as best as he could, but didn't stop him from leaning on him. To be honest, the feeling of Roderich next to him was a comforting reminder that he hadn't lost him, that he hadn't been taken away, and that he was still here, with him.

He had to bite his lip to keep from crying as the reality of what could have happened began to sink in. From now on, they would have to be extremely careful. But this time, they escaped.

Roderich's figure began to tremble, and with a start, he realized he was quietly sobbing beside him. In a panic, he threw his arms around him, and tugged him closer against his chest, holding him as best as he could. He wasn't very good at comforting words, but he did his best, murmuring about how everything was alright, and that they were safe now.

"I've got you," slipped his lips for some reason amidst the onslaught of kind, reassuring phrases, but Roderich didn't seem bothered by this, and Gilbert thought perhaps he hadn't heard him.

"Gil?" the Austrian asked once he had collected himself enough to speak, although his voice was little more than a whisper.

"Yeah, Roderich?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Thank you," he murmured quietly, reaching out and grasping the arms around him in some form of an embrace. "For protecting me."

Gilbert blinked at him in surprise. He didn't feel like a protector. Even though the danger had passed, he still felt weak and scared. He was shaking almost worse than Roderich. And yet, when he thought back, it was the Austrian who had looked so calm and fearless, going as far as to tell one of the officers not to touch him like he had all the authority in the world. Honestly, Gilbert thought, Roderich seemed to be the stronger of them, even though they were both shaking in the aftermath of the situation.

Something about that, coupled with an overwhelming sense of relief caused Gilbert to laugh a little. The fucking police ended up on their doorstep, and yet, Roderich had held his ground, Gilbert had managed to enter his grandfather's room to get something to bribe them, and in the end, they were both unscathed. He found himself laughing harder and harder, slowly gaining volume until his stomach began to hurt.

Roderich pulled away a little to look up at him as though he had lost his mind.

"Are you insane?" he snapped when Gilbert was still chuckling at his expression. "Why are you laughing?"

Gilbert sighed deeply, stifling a few more laughs, but as he sat beside him, smiling like an idiot, he realized something. The dim, pale light from the window couple with the faint, warm light from down the hall combined in a strange way that seemed to make Roderich's skin glow. He was pale, not as pale as Gilbert, but his skin was still fair and smooth, and was richly complemented by his dark hair. He had never seen such a pure color of brown, now that he thought about it, and in the strange lighting, it looked like dark silk. He absently wondered if he'd get in trouble if he tried to touch it. Especially that one piece that stood up stubbornly. Did he like it when it stood up like that?

His eyes dropped from his hair to his face again, taking in the smooth, gentle curves of his chin and cheekbones. He had a youthful face, but his experience seemed to show through the way he set his mouth. He also had rather cute, pink lips that made Gilbert smile when they curved into a pouty frown. Not very manly, that. Still, as he frowned at him now, (and as Gilbert smiled back) he admired the shape of his slender, well-kept eyebrows, and how they arched cleanly to give him a sharp, sophisticated look. It fit him perfectly. It also fit his eyes, those beautiful, stunning, uniquely colored eyes. Eyes that were still brimmed with tears, but nonetheless looked absolutely dazzling. He didn't care if those dark-framed glasses were in the way, as long as they didn't block his eyes from Gilbert's view. He loved those eyes…

With a sharp jolt, he realized what he had allowed himself to think, and turned quickly from the smaller man beside him on the floor. His eyes darted from the window to the floor, back to the window, to the piano, to the couch, desperate to get away from the thoughts that had filled his mind previously as his cheeks began to flush red.

Without warning, he felt a soft warmth against his cheek, just next to his lips. The warmth pressed against him with a slight pressure, and then withdrew. The soft sound it made had Gilbert sitting rigidly.

Had…Roderich just kissed him?

He turned to him with wide, surprised eyes, and it was Roderich's turn to chuckle at his expression. Before Gilbert could get himself to move however, the Austrian took advantage of his stunned state and leaned forward, taking another kiss, this time straight from his lips.

Gilbert's mind spun violently around itself. Roderich…had just kissed him. Twice? He had been under the impression that the Austrian had only just began to warm up to him as a housemate. He knew he annoyed him. Had saving him really changed Roderich's view of him that much?

"You don't…hate me?" he asked, his mind still reeling.

"Idiot," he scoffed, and leaned against him again comfortably. "Of course I don't hate you."

"Oh." he said intelligently.

Roderich laughed softly against him.

The storm outside continued tirelessly. Gilbert, however, was not tireless, and after the events that had occurred, found himself extremely tired. He yawned hugely, not bothering to cover it with his hand.

The musician smiled against him before pulling away and slowly getting up, reaching a hand to Gilbert to help him do the same.

"Come on," that same smile, those open eyes; Gilbert's heart sped up despite the fact his mind couldn't even comprehend what was happening. "I'll help you to bed."

Gilbert still accepted his offer, and Roderich allowed him to sling one arm over his shoulders, using a crutch for the other side while Roderich carried the unused crutch at his side. They made their way down the hallway, and Gilbert looked down to see that the light in his grandfather's room was still on, now acting as the only light in the whole house. He almost laughed at the irony.

Once he was settled in bed, Roderich left the room without another word.

He stared for a moment, before feeling his chest shrink and his shoulders fall with disappointment. He didn't even get to say goodnight…

His mind revved, thinking over his actions that might have caused Roderich to leave so suddenly when he had appeared comfortable with the idea of sticking to his side. Before he could get too far, however, the man in question appeared in the doorway, his glasses glinting even in the vague light from his bedroom window.

They stared at each other for a moment in silence.

"I was just shutting off the light in your grandfather's room," he muttered almost apologetically.

"Oh." he said again, and then shifted as his heart lifted in his chest again, eager not to let Roderich leave again. "Hey, you know, uh, if you didn't want to go all the way upstairs, you could sleep in here tonight,"

The request was obvious and awkward, but Gilbert didn't care about his pride right now. Not in the face of being alone after what happened.

Roderich chuckled at him, which irked him as if on reflex, but the Austrian entered the room, shutting the door behind him and kicking off his shoes before he made his way to the other side of the bed, setting his glasses on the nightstand quietly. Gilbert scooted over for him, but held his breath the entire time the other man slid underneath the blankets beside him. They shifted a little, making sure that the blankets and pillows were evenly distributed and that everyone was comfortable, and then they both sighed as they settled in.

"Gil?" he asked again, his voice sounding much more relaxed.

"Hm?" he responded, looking over at him, but unable to see much more than a faint outline; still, that much was comforting.

"…Goodnight, Gilbert."

He smiled as his eyes began to close. "Goodnight, Roderich."

Gilbert couldn't remember the last time he had fallen asleep so quickly, nor slept so soundly. Weird situations had weird effects on people, he supposed.

* * *

The next morning, when Elizabeta arrived home, she stood in the doorway for several minute, covering her mouth to keep in her amusement. Roderich and Gilbert were cuddle up together, their hands intertwined like lovers. She knew it.

She fucking _knew it._

* * *

 

Roderich awoke when a foreign arm that had somehow found its way around him constricted tightly. He almost screamed in surprise at the arm, and then again at the man in bed beside him. Once the initial terror subsided, he let out the breath in his lungs as a quiet sigh rather than a loud shout.

Gilbert was close to him. _Really_ close. They were practically cuddling.

As he looked at the sleeping albino, he saw a small crease between his eyebrows, and after a moment of silent hesitation, he reached forward and laid his arm down on top of Gilbert's, resting his palm on his bicep. Gilbert shifted initially, but after a moment, his face relaxed and the crease on his forehead smoothed out.

Slowly, the memories of the night before began to return to him, and he swallowed hard. He had almost been taken away, and it was Gilbert who had saved him. His eyes traveled across his rescuer's face slowly. He paused first on his white eyelashes, smiling softly when they fluttered, and then again on his lips. The rough German solider had surprisingly soft lips, which made Roderich smile a bit more.

Gilbert had looked so surprised when he had kissed him, it was honestly endearing. He might not have kissed his lips had he not been so shocked, but it was too much for Roderich to resist. The stupid man had stared at him like he was admiring a beautiful painting, or a woman. He did it so boldly, even though he mustn't have realized until after. And after what they had gone through…Roderich thought that the least he could give him was a kiss. Or two.

The man in question suddenly drew in a deep breath beside him, pulling his arm back to stretch and rub his face. He yawned hugely, blinking a few times, and then those red eyes appeared to focus on him, and widened in shock.

"Aren't you going to say 'good morning'?" he asked when Gilbert only continued to stare.

He blinked a few more times, glancing around the room before he blushed a bit, though he tried to hide it by running one of his hands through his messy hair. "Er…good morning."

"Good morning, Gilbert." he said back, fighting a smile.

After a moment of silently communicating their mutual lack of want to get up, they both rolled onto their backs and stared at the ceiling. In all honesty, it was nice just to be beside someone, and to share warmth beneath a blanket. It had been a long time since he had lied beside anyone.

"You know," Gilbert mumbled after a bit. "If Elizabeta sees us-"

As if on cue, the door swung open and the green-eyed Hungarian smirked at them from just beyond the threshold while they both jerked and rolled to their sides to look at her. As they all stared at each other, Roderich opted to hold up his chin as though their position was perfectly dignified. Elizabeta crossed her arms, her smile spreading a bit wider before she cleared her throat and nodded towards the kitchen.

"Breakfast's ready." she said, but didn't leave.

Roderich was slightly embarrassed to be caught in Gilbert's bed, but when he glanced at his sleeping companion, he saw that his entire face was crimson. He let out a soft breath of amusement, but then looked back up to Elizabeta and nodded.

"We'll be right there."

She covered her mouth with her hand and laughed quietly, shutting the door politely, but a few steps away they heard her laugh much louder. Roderich rolled his eyes.

They avoided eye contact for a few moments, before they finally looked at each other again. Gilbert smiled sheepishly at him and laughed a cute, embarrassed laugh, which made Roderich laugh softly in return. The chuckled quietly together for a bit, but then Roderich stretched too and sat up further.

"I suppose we get ready. No sense in letting the food get cold," he muttered, slowly pushing away the warm blankets with the utmost reluctance.

Gilbert held his breath for a second beside him, but let it out in a sigh that was a bit too loud. "Ugh. Fine."

The injured soldier drew himself up with a large yawn, and Roderich frowned a bit. He should have covered his mouth. When he tried to tell him so, however, Gilbert looked at him with a smirk before yawning again hugely, purposefully throwing his arms out in a stretch as to not cover his mouth.

"That's disgusting!" he scolded, getting up from the bed and shaking himself a bit more awake.

Gilbert just laughed loudly at him before shifting to get out of bed as well.

Roderich opened the door to leave, but felt himself pause for a moment. He threw a glance over his shoulder to see the pale German struggling to wake up his injured leg, his brows furrowing a bit in pain as he secured his crutches under each arm.

He bit his lip slightly.

"Do you need any help?"

Roderich tried to ask the question as softly as he could, trying to show him his sincerity, not wishing to appear as though he was belittling him. He knew of soldiers and their weird notions of honor and pride.

He looked up at him, his eyes widened in surprise. However, as they made eye contact, Gilbert's eyes narrowed a bit and his expression changed, almost like he didn't like the way Roderich was looking at him. Still, they stared at each other until the awkward tension between them became too much, and then Gilbert shoved himself out of bed a bit harsher to get to his feet.

"I'm fine." he mumbled, moving to go fetch fresh clothes without looking back at Roderich.

The Austrian tilted his head a bit. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but he thought that perhaps what had happened the night before would have changed some of the ways things were between them. But, perhaps not. Either way, it was time for Roderich to leave, and left with a simple clearing of his throat before he stepped out and shut the door, not looking back either.

He sighed as he walked down the hallway to the stairs. Although he had originally assumed his housemate to be simple, he was proving to be surprisingly hard to read…

* * *

They all met in the kitchen shortly for breakfast. Once everyone was served and seated, Elizabeta looked to Roderich, apparently waiting to hear why he had spent the night in Gilbert's bed. He calmly continued eating at his normal pace, although as he began to tell the story, his hands trembled in memory of the fear he had felt. She gasped when he told her who had been at the door, her hand held over her mouth, those bright, green eyes opened wide.

He tried to keep his voice steady, but it hitched a bit when he told her about how they asked for identifying documentation, and he paused to take a drink.

"Oh my God-…What did you do?" she asked in alarm.

Roderich swallowed and set his cup down before nodded up and looking directly at Gilbert, whose focus hadn't left his plate since they began eating. "He bribed them. And afterwards, they left with a warning."

Elizabeta's head turned sharply to look at Gilbert, who raised his head and looked back at her. "You…you did?"

He shrugged a bit, but nodded. "Yeah. My grandfather kept a jewelry box full of my grandmother's jewelry and stuff. I let them take that instead."

Gilbert looked almost indifferent as he explained the act that had saved Roderich's life, but when those piercing red eyes shifted to him, they seemed to soften a bit. To allow emotion into them again.

"Gilbert," Elizabeta almost whispered. "I don't know what to say. I mean, I can't believe it,"

"He was very brave," Roderich threw in, keeping his composure steady when Gilbert's eyes widened predictably.

"It was nothing," he practically mumbled back into his food.

Elizabeta shoved her chair back hard, jumping up and grabbing Gilbert around the shoulders, pulling him into a powerful embrace. She didn't say anything else that Roderich could hear, but they hugged tightly before pulling back and nodding to each other in a silent exchange that Roderich was blind to. The brunette then walked back, but passed her seat to move to Roderich, and they embraced each other as well, though much gentler.

"I'm so glad you're alright," she told him quietly.

He nodded a little, closing his eyes. "We'll need to be even more careful from now on,"

She pulled back, those strong green eyes hardening as she took her seat again. "That's right! We have to be much more cautious. I will try to find a place closer to here that I can work, so I can be home sooner."

Roderich and Gilbert both nodded in silent agreement.

"And you need to stop playing the piano." she added firmly, holding her resolve when he looked at her in horror. "It's easy to hear from the street, and this house doesn't need the extra attention."

Roderich sighed a little as the reason in her words hit him, and he sat back further in his chair with a solemn nod. "Very well."

"Good." she said, but when she looked at him again, it was with sympathy.

It didn't really help keep away the feeling of dread that fell upon him, though.

* * *

They all had to make sacrifices, everyone. He had thought leaving his home was his sacrifice, but, no. It was his music.

Elizabeta had left for work hardly an hour ago, and after Roderich and Gilbert had spent awhile trying to move about while awkwardly avoiding each other, he had ended up back at his seat in front of the piano. He trailed his fingertips lightly over the starkly contrasting colors of the glossy black and white keys, noticing the small circles of discoloration that came from so much interaction with human fingers. He wondered who had played it before him. It was not likely Herr Beilschmidt. Perhaps it was his wife. Or even Gilbert's younger brother.

No letters from him, Roderich realized suddenly. Gilbert didn't even both check anymore since his grandfather passed…

Sacrifice.

With a hard swallow at the deep feeling of despair growing inside of him, Roderich reached forward slowly, grasping the fallboard and bringing it forward slowly, watching the polished keys slowly disappear beneath the dark wood. Once it was set in place, it settled his fingers lightly on the wood cover, closing his eyes at the feeling of his craft being removed from him.

It wasn't a feeling that ever seemed to get easier.

Suddenly, two arms wound around him, and when they constricted, he nearly screamed.

After the initial surprise, he felt Gilbert's head pressing against his right shoulder, and realized that he was being held by the German. Perhaps the night before had changed something between them.

Roderich shut his eyes again, bowing his head as he let his hands eventually slide down and fall away from the piano, collapsing limply into his lap.

"…I'm sorry."

They were silent for a bit longer as Roderich felt his chest tighten and then ache at that, and at the feeling accepting that he about to lose what he had always thought was most important in his life.

And who knew how long it would be before he could play again? This war had gotten so big so fast, and they had been swept up in it since the beginning. He could only wonder if he would be there to see its end. Perhaps at that point, those kinds of thoughts were just wishful thinking.

"Thank you." he muttered into the quiet room.

The silence, as cliché as it was, felt deafening. So much so that it physically began to hurt his ears.

"Come on."

Roderich blinked and turned to look at the pale German.

"What?"

"I said, come on. I don't want to watch you sit here and mope all day. Let's go sit on the couch." Gilbert told him, gimping over to sit on the sofa.

After a moment of watching him, Roderich drew in a deep breath, trying to steady himself, and stood, walking away from the piano slowly. He followed Gilbert to the couch, stepping around his feet and crutches to sit beside him. There was still space between them, and for a moment they both faced forward, their feet flat on the ground.

So, on top of the wrenching in his guts and the ringing in his ears, the room was now filled to the brim with awkwardness.

Wonderful.

"So," Gilbert said at length, leaning his head back on the couch and looking at him sideways. "Do you wanna talk about it, then?"

His eyes widened. Talk about what? The fact that they spent the night together in the same bed? The fact he had kissed him, not once but twice?

Gilbert grinned dryly at him, apparently able to guess exactly what he was thinking. "I meant the music, Specs. Do you want to talk about music?"

Relief washed over him when he realized he wasn't being put on the spot, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. They would talk about that soon, but not right now. Gilbert laughed at his relieved expression, making the Austrian frown a bit and resist the urge to swat at him.

"Shut up, you!"

He laughed anyway, chuckling a little when it faded down. "Well, do you want to talk about it or not?"

After composing himself a bit, Roderich looked down at his hands. Gilbert wanted to talk about it to make him feel better, to ease the transition, perhaps. He appreciated that, he honestly did, but no. He couldn't talk about it yet.

He shook his head after a moment.

"Ah."

That was all Gilbert said. Roderich feared this meant their conversation would end, and therefore meant another laps into unbearable silence. But, he just couldn't talk about it, the pain was still too fresh.

"What do you want to talk about, then?" Gilbert asked so easily.

For a second time, Roderich was surprised. But they looked at each other, and he smiled slightly, leaning back farther into the couch.

"Well, er, you were a solider, right?" he asked hesitantly.

Gilbert nodded proudly. "Yep."

His naïveté finally shown through and he crossed his arms. "Were you good at it?"

"I was awesome," Gilbert grinned at him, and then took pity on him, and saved Roderich from asking more battle-oriented questions. "But, it's like second nature to me. Even as I kid, I was always getting into fights.

"Really? Why?" Roderich asked, remember how frail he had been for most of his childhood though he had his fair share of scars.

The German just shrugged, and then smirked at him. "I wanted to."

He frowned back. "You got into fights just because you wanted to?"

"Yeah," he answered, as though that was perfectly normal. "It was fun, and a good way to kill time."

Glancing down at one of Gilbert's knuckles, which was resting on the couch, he noted faint scars all across them. Fists of a fighter for certain.

"I suppose that's true,"

"Did you ever fight?" he asked without seeming to think it through, and then looked at him again. "Not really your thing, I assume?"

Roderich felt offended and frowned with a scoff. "I fought."

This seemed to interest Gilbert, and he lifted his head to look at him more directly. "No way,"

"Yes I did."

The albino smirked at him, clearly amused by the scenario he was imagining, but then raised his eyebrows. "What did you fight over?"

Roderich shrugged in uncertainty. "I don't really remember. It was a long time ago."

"Before you had glasses?" he inquired.

"What?"

"Well, usually kids with glasses stay out of fist fights," he said like it was common knowledge.

His cheeks grew warm with embarrassment. "Oh...I don't actually need them,"

Gilbert's eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"Well," Roderich removed his glasses slowly, turning them around in his hands to look at them from the front before handing them over to Gilbert. "They're just kind of something extra."

Gilbert took the spectacles and peered through them, holding them to his face before putting them on and looking around. When he looked at Roderich though, the Austrian laughed. He looked goofy with his glasses on.

"Hey, what the hell? Why do you even wear these?" he took them off, frowning at the fames in his hands.

Roderich chuckled a bit, but then felt his face grow red, and looked away. "I think I look sort of plain without them. It's kind of silly, I guess,"

Gilbert looked at the glasses once more, but then stared at Roderich's face intensely, studying him. It brought more blood up to his flush cheeks.

"You look different," he muttered after a moment, handing them back. "But, not bad different."

He shyly took them back and returned them to their place, settling the frames on his ears and brushing his hair back before swallowing at the awkward statement. "…Thank you,"

They both shifted awkwardly before Gilbert cleared his throat again and they looked at each other.

"So, did even you win any of your fights?" he smiled teasingly at him.

Roderich sniffed, but smiled back. "As a matter of fact I did. Many of them."

"Oh yeah?" he taunted.

"Yes!"

"I don't believe you."

They continued talking for several more hours, although sometimes Roderich suspected that Gilbert would pick fights with him as he said, simply to fight. Still, he found himself comforted by the aimless conversation, and as they talked he learned more about his odd housemate. He found out that Gilbert claimed to have a knack for gardening and a fondness of birds. He told Roderich that he could name any he ever saw and said he even used to have a pet bird.

"What did you name him?" Roderich inquired, surprised that such a rough soldier would appreciate the company of a gentle songbird.

"Uh, I don't know if I gave him an actual name, really," he shrugged and then smiled in memory. "But we all started calling him Gilbird."

Roderich laughed a bit at the name. Although comical, he did find it rather endearing.

Gilbert continued to smile a bit, staring at nothing but what was going on inside his mind until he suddenly blinked and slapped the thigh of his good leg.

"Well."

He suddenly began to get up, leaving Roderich feeling as though the easy flow of their conversation had been interrupted quite rudely.

"Well what?" he snapped.

"We should clean up." he told him. "You have to keep up with housework or else it will overwhelm you."

Roderich stared after him in disbelief, and then groaned a bit and slouched lower on the couch in a very undignified manner. He hated housework.

"It's not really fair that Elizabeta had to do so much work while I was in that wheelchair," Gilbert was saying as he disappeared from the room and then returned with cleaning supplies. "And since you were useless,"

"Hey—!"

"But!" he cut him off, stooping down to grab and then throw a dust rag to him. "I'm up and you're going to learn how to be helpful around here."

He struggled to catch the dirty rag, and then sat up with a frown. Yet, when Gilbert ordered him to get up and begin dusting on the other side of the room, he obeyed.

He did want to be helpful, it just wasn't always easy for him. He grew tired so quickly, and it was embarrassing. Roderich had gone through years of physical therapy to strengthen his muscles again, but his therapists had all been so impatient with him when he had made little progress. He had learned to make peace with sitting still, and now it was something he preferred. Still, at Gilbert's orders he was on his feet, and began cleaning as instructed.

Still, Roderich was aware that he wasn't cleaning very well. He missed corners and the very edges of shelves, but still, he soon found himself with that familiar feeling of wobbliness in his muscles, and on a hard breath, he returned to the couch.

Gilbert was cleaning nearby when he saw him sit. Yet to his surprise, he didn't taunt him or try to order him up again. Instead, he simply set his rag down silently and joined him on the couch again.

The Austrian looked away, feeling shameful and embarrassed by how quickly he tired, but Gilbert leaned back casually, and picked up their conversation again as though they had only taken a brief intermission. He frowned, but slowly began to talk with him again. It was easier this time, and they rested as they spoke of different things. They laughed a little, but this time, when Gilbert struck up another argument, one that got Roderich sitting up in his effort to stake his point, the German suddenly halted the conversation and ordered them back up. Once again reeling, Roderich could do nothing but obey, and slowly began to resume cleaning.

He glanced over his shoulder a few times, but Gilbert was cleaning diligently, as though this style completing housework was perfectly normal. He really was complex, Roderich thought. That, or just very, very odd.

* * *

They continued on like that for several more hours, although as the day wore on, their rests became more frequent and lasted longer. Still, Gilbert never said anything to him about needed to rest, and after a bit, he began to suspect the injured German needed it just as much. They were both sweating after a bit, and it was gross, but the house had actually begun to feel cleaner. He hadn't realized it had become so stuffy and dusty until it was cleaned.

By the time Elizabeta returned home, all three of them were hungry and exhausted. She asked if anything else had happened over dinner, and Gilbert shook his head, but informed her that they would have the rest of the house clean tomorrow. Roderich made a weak sound at his food and Elizabeta laughed.

Once they had eaten and washed up, Roderich collapsed gracelessly into his bed, and across the small hallway, he heard Elizabeta doing the same. He was tired, and his muscles actually ached from the cleaning they had done. He hated that. Still, his exhaustion helped to drown out his thoughts. He thought he might have ended up in bed, unable to sleep all night due to thoughts about Gilbert. However, in the end he only really had two thoughts before he drifted away:

He thought that although he enjoyed the conversations with Gilbert, he really didn't want to keep cleaning tomorrow, and he also couldn't help but notice that his bed felt unusually large with only himself in it.

 


	6. Chapter 6

When Gilbert awoke, he did so quickly and efficiently.

There was no messing around with grogginess or trying to shake off weird dreams, he simply opened his eyes and was ready to get out of bed. For a bit, he couldn't remember why he felt so eager to wake, and then he remembered: He was to clean the rest of the house today.

Chores in themselves didn't really excite him, but he just felt like this was a good thing, and he was eager to get to it.

He got to his crutches after stretching out his leg, and then washed up before heading to the kitchen. Elizabeta looked surprised that she didn't have to wake him, but her expression smoothly changed to a knowing one, and a smug little smirk played about her lips. He frowned at her, but moved to help her prepare breakfast in silence.

She always had been a step ahead with these sorts of things, but so what? He just got a good night's rest, that's all. Nothing to smirk at.

Gilbert swore she giggled to herself when he finished setting the table for them though, and he almost snapped at her. He had no idea what he was going to say, but even with this new annoyance, he was still eager enough for the day to begin tapping on things.

He felt antsy. But why?

…Elizabeta and that smug, knowing smile.

He could tap if he wanted to. In fact, he started up a distinct rhythm and tapped louder. When she turned and looked at him though, it suddenly hit him that he was acting extremely childish. That kind of thing didn't usually occur to him until long after the fact, but he felt his fingers falter pathetically.

Roderich walked in just as his cheeks began to turn red.

Damnit all to hell.

The brunet yawned behind his hand and then moved his glasses to rub one of his eyes before he took his seat. Gilbert was aware that he was now just staring at him without moving or speaking, but it felt like all the anticipation that had gathered in his gut suddenly leaped upwards. The weightless feeling that washed over him seemed to force his stomach into his throat, and so he was still and silent.

Until Elizabeta nudged him with a hard elbow, and he landed. More or less.

"You're in the way, sit down!" she ordered and he obeyed like a dog.

He felt dazed still, even as he sat; it was like he just couldn't get his feet on the ground.

"How did you sleep?" Roderich inquired.

Gilbert's head snapped up in an incredibly obvious manner, but he felt his cheeks grow even hotter when he realized that the Austrian had been talking to Elizabeta.

Her answer was a soft noise made through pressed lips as she brought breakfast over, but then she nodded to him politely. "You?"

He just nodded tiredly, and Gilbert watched that rogue piece of hair bob as he did so. What was up with that thing, anyway? Did he like it when it stuck out like that?

"And what about you, Gilbert?" Elizabeta teased him with mock-courtesy. "How did you sleep?"

He looked at her hard, but she set a warm plate down in front of him and he forgot about it in the wake of food.

"Fine."

Roderich looked up with concern. "Did you not sleep well?"

_Concern_.

That didn't even begin to describe how Roderich looked at him. He did it often, it seemed, but always at awkward times, leaving Gilbert feeling caught off-guard and unsure of whether he too was just being cruel. The Austrian's prudish face became so open as he looked him, really looked at him with those mesmerizing eyes, and it made something deep inside him twist strangely. He felt like Roderich's concern reached far deeper than whatever he was asking; deep enough to make him wish to tell the truth.

In a panic, he fell back on his gruffer social manners.

"I said it was _fine_."

Roderich looked down immediately and Gilbert bit his tongue.

Damnit all to a deeper circle of hell.

His grandfather always said his big mouth was what would really get him into trouble. He didn't think first; he just said dumb shit.

Elizabeta seemed to realize that she might have pushed him too hard, and as she sat between them, she didn't break the silence for a while. Long enough for the broken atmosphere to heal and calm down a bit.

But when she did speak again, it almost made him jump.

"I don't know if I'll make it home tonight," she muttered quietly but not unclearly, and then her eyes flicked up and moved quickly between them.

"We'll be fine." Gilbert said in an immediate response, but when he heard how hard his own voice sounded, he swallowed and tried to speak a bit lighter. "We'll have the house clean when you get back,"

Elizabeta didn't seem to be comforted, but when Roderich made a whining noise, she snickered at him. After that, the air over them seemed to feel a bit lighter, and by the time breakfast was over, that odd feeling of giddiness returned to him.

* * *

"Specs!" Gilbert shouted scornfully, looking at the shabby job he had done of dusting the room he had been assigned to clean.

They had been cleaning since Elizabeta left that morning and by now their daylight was already half gone, but Gilbert felt they had made little progress. Mostly because he had to follow the Austrian around in order to redo his assignments. Roderich was honestly awful at this. He was probably used to others cleaning up for him.

The German scoffed through his teeth.

When he received no answer, he sighed in irritation and went to go confront him.

Roderich was now supposed to be cleaning the bedroom he slept in, but he was seated in the chair in the far corner. Gilbert knew he was sitting because he was weak and his body tired quickly, but the stupid man still sat with all the authority and arrogance anyone would expect of an aristocrat. It was that kind of bullshit that drove him crazy. Yet, despite his posture and pinched expression, when Gilbert's obvious annoyance entered with him, Roderich looked away and wouldn't meet his eyes.

The air the German had gathered up in his lungs to scold him seemed to dissipate and his chest deflated.

The Austrian's delicate hands were balled into tight little fists on his lap and he looked like he was holding his breath, obviously upset. He knew Gilbert was displeased with him.

Ah, shit.

"Specs," he rubbed the back of his neck.

The man didn't look at him.

He sighed. Well, he supposed there was nothing else to do but show him, step by step, what to do. Perhaps he had assumed too much…

"Come on, I'll show y—"

" _No._ "

The red-eyed man blinked in surprise at the sheer power that was behind that word. It felt like a heavy boot had stomped down on the end of his sentence.

"…What?"

"I said no." Roderich still wasn't looking at him, but his voice was firm and cold.

He scoffed and was immediately once again cross with the Austrian. "What do you mean 'no'?"

"I mean we're finished." He told him, trying to swallow discretely. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"I'm sorry, I forgot I asked." He snapped back.

Roderich's head turned quickly to glare at him. His lips twitched before pressing into a thin line.

Gilbert glared back, willing to fight. Eager, in fact. He had been anxious all day, waiting for something to happen; a fight would take care of that. It was what he was used to anyway.

But, no. After a tense few minutes of watching Roderich refuse to respond or move, his eyes finally dropped to his lap. To those useless little fists. He wouldn't do anything with them.

"Fine." Gilbert snarled and left the room.

He didn't care. He didn't need that stupid Austrian's help. He could do it himself.

Screw 'em.

* * *

They stayed apart for the rest of the day; Gilbert remaining stubbornly downstairs while Roderich could occasionally be heard moving about upstairs.

He had remained forcibly mad for that time, which had actually kept him firmly focused on cleaning. So focused, in fact, that he had time to clean and then cook dinner all by himself before darkness surrounded the house and his physical strength was nearly gone.

He looked around again, realizing that everything he had intended to do was done. With a bitter sigh, Gilbert decided it was time to go check on Roderich.

Gilbert left the kitchen and climbed the stairs tiredly, but when he approached the door to the Austrian's room, he heard distinct shuffling sounds. When he made it to the doorway, he looked in with wide eyes.

Roderich had finished cleaning. The entire room was now dusted, straightened, and tidy. It actually looked good.

An exhausted-looking brunet was finishing up smoothing out the wrinkles in the bedcover before the turned around and spotted Gilbert watching him.

"What?" he snapped, immediately folding his arms.

Gilbert realized he was smiling before he could stop himself. "Looks good in here."

The Austrian glanced around before swallowing and then nodding his head, his lips still tight and his chin held up. "Thank you, Gilbert."

Gilbert smiled at him until Roderich seemed to determine that he was being genuine, and then they both shared a tired sigh his as guard came down and he relaxed his expression.

"I made dinner," the German said, leaning his head against the doorframe.

Roderich walked over to him slowly, almost timidly, but not without grace. He walked until they were face to face, and as Gilbert drew himself back up, they held eye contact silently. For a moment, there was nothing, just an awkward amount of focus between them. Then, those purple eyes opened up to him once again, in that same manner that stole his breath away.

"Let's go, then," he said quietly, smiling at him tenderly.

Tenderly. It was kind of nice, to be looked at like that. Even if it did kind of make him want to rub the back of his neck, or shift his stance, or fiddle with something if only to look away.

"Right." Gilbert mumbled, holding his gaze as long as he could before he finally looked away.

Roderich stepped passed him and then led the way back downstairs. Gilbert followed, back to feeling dazed.

What the hell was going on in this house?

They ate the dinner Gilbert had prepared quietly at the table together. The German saw Roderich glancing at the door once or twice, but they both knew that it was too late; if Elizabeta wasn't home before the sun went down, they wouldn't see her again until it rose. They talked a tiny bit about the dinner, but then Roderich surprised him by suddenly revealing that he knew how to make many different kinds of desserts and treats. Even old German ones that Roderich remembered from childhood.

Gilbert himself had never been much of a baker, but his brother was good at it, and when he told Roderich this, the Austrian encouraged that conversation rather suddenly.

He didn't know why, but he was more than happy to talk about his little brother. He was proud of him, after all; despite his shyness around other people, his brother was a hell of a soldier. A natural-born leader, for sure, just a little awkward at parties. But the more he talked, the more he found that the conversation had turned into him confessing to the other man. He hadn't told anyone how disappointed he'd been when he was finally sent westward only to find out that Ludwig was on a train to the north. He didn't know why he told him that.

Yet, when Roderich's attention still had refused to waver as they began cleaning up, his voice lowered quietly.

"The last time I saw him was just before I was shot, actually." He told him.

Roderich glanced at him sideways as he helped him clean off the dishes. "Oh?"

"I wasn't supposed to. I left my unit without permission."

The Austrian's stunning eyes widened. "You did? Why didn't you just tell them you needed to see him?"

Gilbert swallowed and looked down at his hands. He was quiet while they finished.

He hadn't told anyone about what had happened. There was still so much danger and shame and fear tied up in the whole damn thing. He didn't even know if Ludwig was okay or where he was any longer. He hoped he was far away from Europe. As far away as he could get. The rumors of what they did to deserters and traitors were horrifying even to battle-hardened men.

"They wouldn't have let you?" Roderich gently pressed when he received no answer.

"It's kind of a long story," he mumbled.

He nodded silently and Gilbert thought that meant he was willing to let the conversation die, but when they both retired to the couch in the main room, he turned to him and rested his hands in his lap expectantly.

_Fucking aristocratic piece of—_

Gilbert found himself having to smother a grin, so he rubbed his face with his hands and sighed loudly as he settled back into the couch.

They sat quietly for a bit longer before he gave a grim laugh, and shook his head.

"See, the thing you have to know about my brother," he let his head fall back, propping one elbow up on the arm of the couch so he could swing his hand around for emphasis. "He's just really, really unlucky."

Roderich didn't respond, but Gilbert somehow knew that his eyebrow had quirked up slightly. That somehow made him want to continue more than just the urge to vent.

So, he did. He opened up a weird, hidden part of his mind that held his secrets, and he told Roderich about how his brother had been framed, how Gilbert had heard about it, and how he had escaped his regiment and traveled over a thousand miles undercover in order to get to Sweden to find out what the hell had really happened.

Roderich gawked at all the appropriate times, and Gilbert nodded; sometimes he couldn't even believe what had happened. It all felt a bit surreal, breaking rank to go find out if Ludwig was to be executed or worse.

"You went that far, and came back, without being caught?" the Austrian gasped.

He nodded a bit and absently traced a design on the couch. "It was crazy, that's for sure. But it was like, 'my brother was in trouble, so nothing was going to stop me from getting there'. Almost like I was invincible to everything until I knew he was okay."

"So, he was okay?" Roderich followed apprehensively.

Gilbert paused.

"Not exactly."

He wasn't sure if the true meaning of 'desertion' or 'defection' would be lost on the musician, but there was no other way to say it.

"He deserted when he found out what they were going to do. He ran, into Sweden, to hide." Gilbert waited, having slumped down enough so that he could see Roderich's expressions now.

To his surprise, his mouth fell open, and he raised a hand to cover it in an honest expression of alarm. Gilbert nodded, mostly to himself though, and continued.

"The bastard ended up with some crazy Swedes, some kind of rebels or something, who'd shot him in the leg before they took him in," he growled.

"Like you." he observed.

The German paused to realize that he hadn't really thought about it like that, but yeah, both he and his brother had been shot in the leg.

He had to take a moment to laugh.

* * *

Roderich had somehow encouraged him to tell the entire story, beginning to end, going so far as to even spill the bit about how he was greeted upon his return. No one liked an albino in the ranks. Too fucking obvious, even with a helmet. Yeah, sure, so obvious that he was able to slip through half of Europe and back without getting caught.

When he finished, he was crossing his arms over his chest, frowning at a spot on the couch. He hadn't really wanted to tell that story, and now that he had, along with a lot more than he'd wanted to say, he just felt weird. It made him want to squirm.

"Gilbert," Roderich suddenly placed that elegant hand on his good knee.

That got him to look up, and see the way he knew Roderich would be looking at him. He looked back, but felt his insides wriggle and constrict. What the hell did he want from him, anyway?

"I—"

A loud cracking sound split through the air, and through all of Gilbert's immediate thoughts. A gunshot. It was close, too.

Too close.

It felt as though the room had collapsed strangely around him, and he thought he heard someone scream. The sound of gunshots seemed to be right in his ears, making him wince and jerk awkwardly away from the noise. Suddenly, it was like he was back on the field, dust and heat and smoke stealing away his breath. Filling his lungs until he couldn't inhale at all, no matter how hard he tried. It really hurt his chest, but as the terror set it, everything hurt. Every muscle spasm, every attempt at swallowing, every time he tried to move and felt himself painfully restricted by things he couldn't even see.

What kind of new hell was this?

He was like that for a while, maybe an eternity. Trying to gasp for more air, but never able to hold anything in. Unable to move, or scream, or do anything to stop the chaos swirling around him.

God, the pain and the fear. He couldn't even remember his own damn name.

Then a voice came to him. A voice too soft and tender for the battlefield. It wouldn't leave him alone, actually, no matter how he tried to turn away from it.

It kept calling him, until he eventually realized he was being called by name. If there had been a light, he would have followed that ghostly voice into it, but there was no light. There was a hand, though, he found at length, and it was all he could do to grasp at it.

He just wanted to breathe. One lungful of air.

_Please, God, just let me breathe._

And in answer to his prayers, he did. But it hurt.

A hard heel of a hand was suddenly jabbed against his chest, and he let out a forced cough, expelling air he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. Immediately, he sucked in a breath, only to have it forced out of him again in the same manner. That went on for a bit, until he began to breathe out on his own, and his pulse finally began to descend.

Slowly, the sounds of war and gunfire began to fade away from him.

He managed to crack open his eyes and saw a figure silhouetted against a bright light. The figure was speaking to him softly, things he couldn't understand, but were calming nonetheless. As he began to calm down, and as he was finally transported back to his house, back to the living room, his vision began to clear.

Roderich's form began to distinguish itself from the room light behind him, and he blinked until he realized that it was the Austrian who was speaking. Angelic, still…

"Gilbert, can you hear me?" he was calling to him.

He forced a nod, still just so grateful to be breathing.

"Good. Just try to relax." He told him. "You're safe here."

It was true.

The loud noises of battle were gone, and the stink and the dirt and the heat had vanished as well. They had never been. As Gilbert's eyes opened further, he realized that he had somehow fallen on the floor again, and that Roderich was with him, his knees supporting the albino's head.

There had been danger once, but it had never been here.

What the hell was happening to him? He felt like he was going crazy.

"Shh," the voice above him hushed him gently. "It's over now. I've got you. Don't cry."

Each of those short statements sent his mind buzzing, but he reached a shaky hand up to his face and his fingers brushed whatever had been tickling his cheek. It was wet. He was crying without even knowing it.

Roderich doubled over awkwardly in order to hug him as best as he could. To comfort him.

"It's okay, Gilbert. It's all okay." He kept saying over and over again, trying to get it through to him that none of what had happened was real.

Fuck, he must have made a scene. Still, somehow even as he realized what had happened had been a false alarm, he just cried harder. Maybe because he was embarrassed, or afraid, or just so relieved that it wasn't real. Uneven gasps and hiccups and occasional clipped cries filled the room as Roderich just continued to hold him and talk to him.

The musician's hands ended up in his hair after a bit, apparently realizing he had no choice but to let him sob.

For a moment, Gilbert was so terrified that he was about to get up and leave him that he barked out his name between gasps and tears.

"I'm here Gilbert," he told him in that same mild, angelic voice. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh, god," he sobbed loudly in response.

"It's okay," he muttered, and began running his fingers lightly through his hair.

Roderich stroked his face, he wiped his endless tears, and he ran his fingers through his hair, all just to comfort him. At first, for some reason, it made him cry harder, but it eventually did begin to relax him. He sniffled a bit as he began to come back down from it all, his head pounding a bit.

There was a brief flash of white over his vision, and suddenly something was being handed to him.

"Here."

He took the white object, realizing it was a beautifully embroidered handkerchief.

Despite everything, he found himself too embarrassed to do anything with it. He wasn't about to wipe his nose with such a pretty thing. Such a pretty thing from a person like the one who was supporting his head.

"It's okay," he mumbled, almost unintelligibly, trying to hand it back.

"I insist," Roderich responded promptly, and it may have been just in his mind, but he thought he heard a soft, endearing smile behind those words.

"Thanks," he muttered.

"You're welcome, Gilbert."

* * *

Calming down seemed to take hours, but Roderich never left him there on the floor, he just continued to pet his hair and stroke his cheeks, forehead, and chin, letting him cry occasionally as he needed to. He talked to him, even if he was just repeating the same phrases over and over again, and that helped. The touches helped more, and when he bent down and pressed a sudden, tender kiss to his forehead, he felt his body go absolutely limp.

Roderich chuckled sweetly at him, but then fell silent as the room finally settled down at last.

"I'm sorry," Gilbert choked out at length.

"Shh." He was immediately shushed, which made him frown, but then the Austrian spoke again, with a surprising amount of firmness. "Don't apologize; it's not your fault."

He looked away, not knowing what to say.

These ghostly flashes of war appearing in his house were hellish in their intensity but, now that it was over, he felt like he had made a total and utter ass of himself. He didn't even want to know what Roderich thought of him now…what he thought of that display. And over a gunshot. Getting scared by a policeman's pistol like he'd never heard a gun go off.

He felt miserable.

"Gilbert," that voice called him back again, despite how he tried to resist. "Gilbert, look at me,"

He obeyed, practically glaring up at the man who he was using as a pillow.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his eyes fixing on him like he was looking right down into him, into his mind, body, and soul all at once.

He looked up at him for a while, and then sighed and nodded.

It was over. He was alright.

Eventually, Gilbert sat up and turned, pressing his back into the couch so he could look at Roderich.

Those sweet lips, the lips that had talked him back from the depths of hell and insanity, were slightly parted in worry. Worry for him. He looked down and rubbed his neck.

His hands were still shaking and he felt strangely cold. He had always been a little more sensitive to temperature change, but this kind of cold felt like it was coming from the inside. A cold core. A sickness.

Gilbert might have shivered a bit, but before he could do anything else, Roderich had pulled down the blanket from the couch and threw it around both of them. They wrapped up together quietly, avoiding each other's eyes, and instead contemplating the walls and the designs on the blanket. Then, a warm hand entwined with his own, and held it. Roderich settled his head gently on his shoulder and they let their bodies lean into each other slowly.

He sighed, and let the muscles in his back and shoulders begin to relax as warmth spread between them beneath the blanket.

"Roderich?" he asked at length.

"Yes, Gilbert?" the Austrian answered from beneath his chin.

"Thanks." His voice was scratchy and a bit whispery, but he tried to say it with as much feeling as he could muster.

He wasn't sure how much would really fit into that one word, but it was all he could get out.

Roderich's soft, dark hair tickled his skin as he adjusted his head on his shoulder. "You don't need to thank me."

"And why's that?" he asked, breathing out softly as he enjoyed the feeling of warmth returning to his body, courtesy of the man beside him.

A long pause.

So long, in fact, that Gilbert thought he wasn't going to get an answer. Then, the smaller man lifted his chin a bit and cleared his throat pointedly.

"Because I,"

Roderich began to pull back to sit up, and something about the tone of his voice put Gilbert back on high alert and he turned to look at him.

"I,"

Gilbert's eyes began to grow wide.

"I'm in love with you, obviously." He folded his arms as he said it, and then looked at him with such an aristocratic expression that the German gawking at him almost mistook his confession for sarcasm.

"… _What?_ " he blurted out gracelessly alarm.

Roderich raised his slender eyebrows calmly, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about that statement. "I said, I love you."

This Austrian was going to be the death of him. They had just been fighting for the last entire half of the day. They taunted and annoyed each other daily. And yet, he said he…

On the other hand, he had kissed him. Twice. And they had slept in the same bed together the night the police had come. He'd also admitted to not hating him then.

Gilbert looked down a bit, trying to get his thoughts in order while Roderich held his poise.

With a twinge of embarrassment, Gilbert realized that his chest now felt warm, so did his cheeks. Hot, even. He was blushing. Probably because he was being forced to acknowledge that he held his own feelings for the eccentric Austrian. Besides, if they were just friends, he probably wouldn't be thinking about his eyes and lips so much. _Obviously._

He began to cover his mouth, but then cleared his throat, too.

"Yeah,"

Brilliant response.

Roderich frowned in irritation, making Gilbert begin to grin beneath his hand. "Yeah _what_?"

"Er…me too." He told him as he let his hand drop, trying to hold his chin and his composure as Roderich had done.

A faint pink blush dusted the Austrian's face elegantly, and he tilted his head down a bit before glancing back up, making those pretty eyelashes flutter a bit. "Oh."

_I_ _love you._

To hell with it all; he loved him too. Millions of different people to choose from though, and he had to go and fall for Roderich. Gilbert was pretty sure God was laughing at him just then.

They were still holding hands, but Gilbert's had begun to sweat with his nervousness, so he carefully pulled it away and wiped it on his pants. Roderich might have looked faintly amused, but laid his hands together neatly in his lap beneath the blanket.

They sat in awkward silence for a while, until Gilbert became so fearful that Roderich was playing some sort of sick joke on him, that he decided he needed to test him. The German then turned towards him so they were sitting face to face beside the couch, wrapped together in a large, heavy blanket.

Roderich looked up at him when he moved, but didn't say anything. Just watched him with an unreadable stare.

Gilbert tried not to hesitate, to make sure he wouldn't psych himself out, yet, he couldn't help but notice the elegant structure of the Austrian's face, along with the way his full lips were now held closed, and his glasses glinted from where they were perched upon his shapely nose. He tried to swallow down his nervousness, though he felt almost as if he nearly missed his own throat, and then he clenched his jaw and his fist, and moved.

He leaned forward quickly, able to see Roderich's eyebrows raise and his lips part slightly to form the beginning of a question, but only before he reached him, and pressed their lips together.

There was a stillness in Roderich, but Gilbert kept the force behind his lips, holding them to the other pair, though he was far too stiff with fear to try to get them to move in any sort of way.

Roderich continued to hold still, and after a moment Gilbert began to pull back. He intended to laugh and call his bluff, but somewhere deep in his heart, there was an odd sting that turned into a strange wrenching feeling. It made his throat tighten.

Suddenly, there was a hand on the back of his neck, and he was tugged forward again, and those full lips met his stunned ones once more. They moved expertly, pressing against his lips before relaxing and creating a slight suction between them. He kissed him slowly, trying to, as he eventually realized, spur him into participating.

Oh.

It took him a moment to overcome his anxiety, but then he responded to the ministrations against his mouth, and kissed him back. Despite the kisses Roderich had given him before, Gilbert hadn't expected his lips to be so soft and warm, and they moved so fluently and so sweetly against his own that made his knees weaken, even though they were sitting down.

They kissed unhurriedly, but fully. Deliberately. Allowing time to truly feel the kiss, to memorize it, to allow its effects to sweep over them both. Their tongues timidly touched, at first only to lubricate their lips, but then they met again, and Gilbert felt Roderich cautiously begin to open his mouth to deepen the kiss.

He swallowed with his lips pressed to the other's mouth. Gilbert didn't have nearly as much skill with such things as he let on, but somehow the warmth that was growing in his chest stoked an adventurous desire within him. The pale German took a deep breath before pulling the Austrian close against his chest, tilting his chin up with his knuckle and bowing his head down to capture his lips more fully. Then, he gently parted his own lips, and their tongues timidly met in the shared territory between their mouths.

His tongue felt hot and slick, and he was utterly intrigued with the feeling as the two wet muscles felt the other out carefully. Their saliva mixed and their tongues touched the vestal insides of each other's mouths, but Gilbert was still focused on the feeling of Roderich's tongue. He liked the way it moved, the way it traced along his lips even as they were pressed together, and he chased after it with his own tongue. After a moment, Roderich gave in, and let them meet once again, beginning a complex, albeit sloppy, dance.

The intricate movements caused a shuttered to slide down his spine, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, and he leaned deeper into the kiss with a heavy breath through his nose.

Oh, _God-_

Roderich's hand lifted to stroke his cheek and in response, Gilbert's hand came to hold the tender place where the back of his head met his elegant neck. As he held him, and as Roderich stroked his face softly, the Austrian slowly began to open his mouth wider, yielding his tongue to him, and allowing him uninhibited access.

His eagerness to taste the musician's supple mouth overpowered his persistent anxiety, and he pressed forward, letting his tongue explore Roderich's mouth more fully. He traced the roof of his mouth, his tongue traveled over his glossy teeth, he gingerly stroked the impossibly soft inner walls of his cheeks, but when he teased the top of his tongue, Roderich suddenly became emboldened. The receptive Austrian suddenly kissed him with more power, forcing the dance between their tongues to pick up speed. Their lips moved together as they concealed the secret meeting, but eventually Gilbert's inexperience shown through, and their lips slipped apart as he applied too much force.

They both retracted their tongues and swallowed as they parted, and for a moment, Gilbert was almost too embarrassed to look back at him while he wiped his mouth. But Roderich wasn't looking at him critically at all. Instead, he was looking up at him from under half-lidded, glazed-over eyes that shown with rich desire. His lips were parted again, desiring yet more kisses. He wasn't going to berate him for his naivety, and with that, all Gilbert's apprehension and fear melted away. Replaced instead by his own desire, which rose up and flooded over his entire body, setting a fever to his flesh and to his mind.

"Gilbert," he muttered breathlessly as those enticingly mystical eyes began to flutter shut once again.

He began to move again, intending to kiss him until he was breathless, but then there was a loud series of knocks at the front door and his body froze completely solid.

Oh _shit-_

Roderich's eyes had snapped open widely, and they stared at each other before Gilbert jerked his head violently to the side, motioning for him to get to the back room.

His grandfather had a small area beneath the bed where he had once stored things like guns and bullets, things that needed to be kept away from young boys, but now it served as their makeshift place to hide Roderich.

The Austrian looked at him with so much terror in his eyes that Gilbert wanted to do nothing more than pull him into his arms and hold him. He wanted to protect him, to fight off whoever was at the door, but he knew he couldn't, so he just motioned a second time and they both scrambled to throw the blanket back on the couch before he disappeared quickly down the hallway and Gilbert grabbed his crutches.

The knocks hadn't sounded again, yet. That was a good indication so far, but he didn't dare get his hopes up. It was dark outside. Too dark to be Elizabeta. And no one walked the dark streets of Rosenheim with good intentions these days.

He waited as long as he dared to give Roderich a chance to hide before he began towards the door. Holding his breath, he unlocked it slowly, and then mouthed a silent prayer before pulling the door open slightly.

If there really was a god, he was watching over them that night.

It was Elizabeta.

"Hurry, let me in!" she hissed in a whisper.

He swung the door open wider to pull her in, and then shut it quickly and locked it back up.

"What in the hell are you doing?" he barked at her when he turned around.

She was wrapped up in a dark cloak with her hair tied in a dark scarf, but she still would have been obvious hurrying down the empty streets between their house and the house she worked at.

"They let me off late, I thought I could make it." She was panting, her cheeks red and her eyes bright as the scanned the room. "Where's Roderich?"

Gilbert nodded to the back room as the tension in his muscles began to relax into irritation. "In the back room. You scared the hell out of us!"

She just scoffed at him, but they met each other's eyes before she began down the hallway, and there was a much more sincere apology within their light green color.

He grunted and began following her. Apology accepted.

Didn't mean he was happy, though.

They both moved down the hallway to his grandfather's room. Gilbert didn't dream about it any longer, but he was still glad Elizabeta walked before him, and was the one to turn on the light.

"Roderich," she called. "It's just me. It's alright,"

There was a silence, and then a soft scuffling could be heard beneath the bed before the small door popped open, and a dusty, brown-haired aristocrat appeared.

He got to his feet, dusting off his clothes in annoyance.

"Elizabeta, that's so dangerous! You can't go out when it's this late! You should have just stayed there!" he scolded her.

Gilbert didn't dare say anything like that to someone like Elizabeta, but to his surprise, the Hungarian just nodded.

"I'm sorry."

He sighed, adjusting his glasses. "We just have to be careful. All of us."

All three of them nodded in unison.

"So, did you eat?" Gilbert asked her as they began to shuffle out of the room.

She nodded. "A little."

"There's still some dinner left over, I think," Roderich told her, switching off the light and shutting the door so Gilbert didn't have to.

He appreciated that, but refrained from making eye contact with the Austrian. Not just yet. It would be too awkward.

She nodded again. "Alright. You two can go to bed, then."

Elizabeta continued to the kitchen, leaving Gilbert and Roderich to pause at the bottom of the stairs.

Had she not come home, Gilbert was certain he could have spent another night with Roderich in bed beside him. However, now that she was there, it would just be too embarrassing to explain. Someday they would tell her, he was sure, just, not when it was still so new. They'd only had their first real kiss not five minutes ago.

"Well, goodnight, Gilbert." Roderich said at length once they had shifted awkwardly and avoided eye contact for long enough.

"Goodnight, Specs." The nickname was enough to get Roderich to look at him with a frown, and as soon as he had his attention, he shot him a grin and a wink.

The brunet blushed visibly, and covered his mouth before scoffing and turning to head up the stairs. He watched him though, and just before the other man disappeared for the night, he caught a flash of a charming smile.

A goodnight, more or less. Tomorrow would be interesting, at least.

It made him want to hit his head against the wall, but in a good way.


	7. Chapter 7

Roderich did not wake up feeling excited to get up.

No, absolutely not. He took his time getting out of bed, and did not rush to wash up and get ready to go downstairs. Whatever he had said the night before, Elizabeta was not surprised to see him arrive in the kitchen so early, and he did not look up as soon as he heard Gilbert gimp into the room.

The Austrian remained in denial about his eagerness all through breakfast. He refused to believe that he had a hard time paying attention to Elizabeta whenever he could feel Gilbert's eyes turn to him. He also deeply rejected the notion that a feeling of fluttery giddiness rose up from his stomach and into his throat when Gilbert spoke directly to him.

No.

Gentlemen did not swoon. And even if they did, it was _not_ at rough, unpolished, solider-types like Gilbert Beilschmidt. Even if the man had his charms. Even if he may have completely and utterly captured Roderich's affections.

In fact, he was so busy being in denial that he forgot to notice that Elizabeta was home for the day, and was surprised when he saw her sitting near the window with a book in her lap. His chest then felt like it had deflated a bit, and his heart suffered a strange pang of disappointment. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but whatever it was, this didn't seem to be it.

Gilbert entered the room, making plenty of noise on those crutches, and faced Roderich.

"Alright, let's get to it then," Gilbert said as though they had been discussing and something had just been concluded.

Roderich looked at him in surprise. "Let's get to _what_?"

His answer was tossed at him in the form of a dirty rag, which he didn't even make an effort to catch this time. The once-white cloth hit him offensively and then fell down and collapsed in a lump at his feet that strangely resembled a dead rat.

"Oh, give him a break, Gilbert," Elizabeta called from her sunlit seat. "Take a rest day."

The albino tossed his head to look at her in an exasperated manner, but then looked back and studied him for a moment.

Roderich was still glaring at him after being hit with that disgusting rag, but Gilbert seemed to ignore this entirely and stared at him as though he was studying a painting. Roderich's brow smoothed out a bit; whatever Gilbert was thinking about just then, it wasn't about cleaning the house some more.

"Alright, fine," he sniffed in mock reluctance before flashing him a grin. "It's important to take breaks, even for people as adept as me."

Roderich rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, but he denied to himself that he then pressed his arms into his stomach. It definitely was not in an attempt to negate the fluttery feeling that made the blood rush in his ears.

* * *

The day passed slowly. Roderich and Gilbert occasionally caught each other's eyes, only to look away quickly. With Gilbert's incredibly pale skin, it was easy to spot the flush on his cheeks that appeared after each time. Elizabeta occasionally snipped and taunted him, and he had plenty of retorts to throw back, but a knowing smirk from her lips was all it took to get either of them to turn a few shades redder.

In some ways it was nice to have them all safe at home; they took all of their meals together and everyone spend the afternoon chatting about nothing in particular. Relaxing, really. And yet, that same feeling of disappointment continued to nag at him through the rest of their mellow day.

In the evening Elizabeta began yawning almost theatrically before she excused herself to head off to bed early. It wasn't strange, really. She worked such long hours and needed more rest, but it somehow still felt a little false. Roderich caught the Hungarian making faces at Gilbert as she disappeared upstairs, and didn't doubt Gilbert was making them back. They fought with each other like children, though Roderich couldn't really figure out why. Clashing personalities, perhaps? They were both awfully proud, but enjoyed getting a reaction out of others.

Roderich smiled in bemusement as he imagined them fighting as young children, arguing over something where they were either both wrong or both right. Endearing, if not a little annoying.

When Gilbert came back and sat down beside Roderich on the sofa, something seemed to change. The atmosphere of the room felt entirely different. Just a moment ago it had been friendly and relaxed, but now it felt tense. It made him suddenly nervous to move for fear that this feeling that surrounded them might shatter, and who knows what could happen then?

So, they sat in strained silence. The only sound was a light shuffling that came from upstairs where Elizabeta was getting ready for bed, but when that ceased, it was absolutely quiet.

Gilbert fidgeted a little with the end of his sleeve. Roderich swallowed quietly and pushed his glasses farther up his nose. They could have heard a needle drop.

The house creaked a little in the cold night.

Roderich dared to steal a glance at the soldier beside him, but at that moment a bird cooed just beyond the window behind him, and Gilbert looked up. Their eyes met for an alarming second, and then they both looked down.

Why was his heart beating so fast? He swallowed again.

"So-" Gilbert said, but his voice cracked a little and he coughed to strengthen it. "So,"

So.

"Nice night." Roderich ventured to observe, but breathed in amusement to indicate he was joking.

Gilbert offered a wry smile to show he got the jest. "Sure is."

They both smiled a little and then shifted.

Roderich's mind was scrambling to figure out what was going on. Gilbert was right beside him, and yet it all still felt strangely distant. The night before had been different; they had come close to each other somehow. He just didn't know how to do it again.

Suddenly he felt something on his hand, which was resting on the couch, and jumped a little.

Gilbert jerked, realizing he had accidently set his hand down on top of Roderich's, and blushed.

"Oh, sorry,"

"It's fine," he answer quickly.

Gilbert's hand was cold.

He looked down and saw that his knuckles were red. They looked like they ached.

The Austrian debated with himself for a moment and then took in a breath, gathering every ounce of courage he could find. With everything he could muster he reached out and took the soldier's hand in his.

There was a testing silence, but Roderich almost didn't notice it. Gilbert's hands were really cold. Freezing. The house wasn't kept particularly warm, but his hands still shouldn't have been _this_ cold.

Gilbert was blushing, but before the moment could grow old enough to die, his pale fingers curled around the Austrian's hand, and he held it in return.

"You're cold," Roderich said after a moment.

"Yeah," he shrugged a little and flexed his other hand. "I've always kind of had a hard time keeping warm,"

Roderich could only imagine what kind of hell that must have been to be on a battlefield in winter. It made him shutter just to think about.

"Are you cold?" Gilbert asked when he must have noticed him shiver.

"A little," he told him.

He really wasn't. Not _that_ cold, anyway.

The albino's movements were a little hesitant, but Gilbert withdrew his hand and took the blanket that was hung over the back of the couch, and wrapped them up together once again. Roderich blushed a little as they scooted closer together, but once the blanket was bound around them, the tension suddenly seemed to break. It seemed to just fall away, leaving the air around them feeling fluid and comfortable once more. It didn't take as much courage to take his hand again, and he even went as far as to rest his head on Gilbert's shoulder. It was kind of bony, but still comfortable.

The German swallowed quietly before Roderich felt him nuzzle into his hair, and then he let out a soft, relaxed breath.

Their bodies' warmth combined beneath the blanket and before long Gilbert's hands had lost their deathly chill. The Austrian found himself feeling completely and utterly content, snuggled there on the couch with Gilbert. He felt strangely safe then, a kind of safety he had almost forgotten. It was as though all the evils in the world were held at bay by the warmth that embraced them both under their blanket.

They stayed like that for a while. However, the comfortable warmth eventually began to make Roderich yawn and blink sleepily. He felt another pang of disappointment hit his chest when Gilbert yawned, too.

It seemed that the whole day had been leading up to this, only for it to be over so quickly.

"It's probably time for bed," Gilbert said at length.

Roderich's shoulders fell a little, but he nodded and drew in a deep breath as he pulled himself upright.

They stood reluctantly, feeling the heat escape the blanket and the cold air embrace them once more. Gilbert stretched and yawned hugely, which forced Roderich to yawn, though he covered his mouth with the back of his hand. Then, he slowly began to shuffle towards the stairs while Gilbert tossed the blanket back over the couch. He was busy dreading the thought of sliding into his cold bed when he felt something thump against his back.

It was Gilbert's head.

He let out a soft complaining noise that made Roderich want to frown and smile at the same time.

"What?" he demanded, but felt a smile on his lips.

Gilbert began to yawn, though he tried to talk through it, ensuring that the Austrian had no idea what he said.

"What?" he asked again, more firmly.

"It's cold,"

"Brilliant observation." He rolled his eyes, but honestly felt more like laughing.

Gilbert whined again before he lifted his head up slightly and dropped it on Roderich's left shoulder. His back stiffened slightly when he felt his warm, soft breath on his neck. The brunet glanced down at him and saw that Gilbert was looking down and frowning as though something was very difficult to understand. Before he could ask him what it was, he felt the German's arms wind around him and pull him so his back was pressed against his chest.

"It's cold…come to bed with me," he finally mumbled into the collar of Roderich's shirt.

For the third time that day, Roderich felt butterflies awaken in his stomach, making it hard to take deep breaths.

Elizabeta would make fun of them, but, she understood in her own way. And after all, it wasn't like people could disapprove of him anymore than they already did, so what did he care?

"Alright," he muttered quietly.

They were still for a moment and then Gilbert released him so he could go upstairs to change. They both avoided eye contact when they parted; it just felt a little too awkward still. But when he changed and walked back down the stairs, he saw it was now dark except for a light coming from Gilbert's room, where the door was still opened.

He swallowed, clutching nervously at the hem of his nightshirt and his pillow as he walked slowly down the hallway. He felt irrational fears creeping up on him, like the fear that Gilbert hadn't really asked him to come to his bed, and that the German would just look at him awkwardly when he arrived. Roderich tried to beat them back, but his hands were still practically trembling when he reached the threshold, and timidly peeked inside.

Gilbert was just sitting down on the bed, setting his crutches off to the side. He noticed the Austrian half hiding behind the doorframe, using his pillow like a shield, and smiled a little, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You coming?" he asked.

Roderich sniffed a little at the tone, but nodded and entered, trying to shut the door without showing how nervous he felt. This wasn't the first time he had spent the night beside the German, but he still felt incredibly shy about everything.

He moved around to the other side of the bed and removed his glasses, folding them neatly and setting them on the nightstand before he took in a deep breath and pulled the blankets down. Gilbert was fussing with situating his leg in the bed, so Roderich took the opportunity to slide into the bed without being observed while he did it.

Though he was a musician and a performer, and therefore was used to and comfortable with being observed, there was just something about Gilbert that made him feel completely flustered.

They both lied down together on their own pillows and tugged the blankets up over their shoulders. The bed and the blankets were still cold, but somehow not nearly as cold as Roderich had been dreading. It made him want to blush.

"If Elizabeta sees us again, we're never going to hear the end of it," Gilbert told him suddenly. "You know that, right?"

Roderich smiled when the room darkened but he realized that he could still see Gilbert's silver hair. "You know something, Gilbert...I think I can live with that."

He scoffed but Roderich could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke again. "If you say so, but don't say I didn't warn you,"

They laughed a little, and then in a courageous moment, scooted a little closer so Roderich was resting his head on Gilbert's chest with an arm wrapped around him. Roderich felt his body relax almost instantly, closing his eyes on a contented sigh. He then felt a sudden, warm pressure against the tip of his nose, and realized that Gilbert was trying to find his lips to kiss him goodnight.

He blushed bright enough that he was certain he was glowing in the dark room, but he smiled.

"That's my nose,"

"Sorry,"

Roderich tilted his head back with a soft laugh, allowing Gilbert to find his lips with the tips of his fingers before he felt the German move a little closer to kiss him. Their lips lingered against each other's, and though it was evident that they were both feeling nervous and a little awkward, the kiss still seemed to flood Roderich's body with electricity.

Once their lips parted for the last time and they settled down to sleep, Gilbert's voice reached him again.

"You have really nice lips," he told him shamelessly, sounding like he was almost asleep.

Roderich blushed, again.

"Gilbert?"

"Yeah, Specs?"

"Shut up."

* * *

The days continued much the same way, the weather outside eventually began to seem milder as the days grew longer. Still, on stormy days or nights that Elizabeta didn't return home, Roderich slept in Gilbert's bed. Sometimes they would talk into the long hours of the night, but sometimes they would fall asleep only for Gilbert to bolt awake a short time later, shouting about things that Roderich had no knowledge of. Roderich was concerned about Gilbert's frequent nightmares, especially on the nights he slept in his own bed. However, slowly, these nights became fewer and farther between, until eventually he only went to his room for his clothes.

But while something loving and tender was beginning to bloom inside their small house, in the world outside, things only appeared to be getting worse. The war was always seeming to get bigger, the death toll kept climbing, and every once in a while Gilbert would awake from a nightmare and be unable to realize that he was safe at home and no longer on the battlefield. The war took priority over the country now; it seemed to touch every aspect of their lives. The rations became stricter and they had to adjust how much food they cooked each day to make sure it would last the week. Elizabeta even told them about how the neighbors of the home she worked at had begun keeping rabbits for their meat.

There was hardly ever any mail. Gilbert still didn't bother to check it. Ludwig probably would never write home, even if he was to survive all of this.

Roderich dusted the piano often. He hated to see it collecting dust. Sometimes he would pull the fallboard up just to look at the keys. Just to let his fingers brush over them again. He missed his music. Sometimes it almost physically hurt for the world to be so quiet around him all the time. The war took something from everyone.

Yet, at the same time, Gilbert was healing and his strength was growing, even under the new rations. He now only used one of his crutches, and often practiced walking without it. He was very diligent about stretching it and training his muscles every day, but more than that, Roderich realized that all this time Gilbert had also been training _him_. As the weeks had gone by, the Austrian realized that now he could clean for nearly an hour straight before he had to sit down and rest. He had been training him every day, even when there was nothing to clean. For example, the German would do something like go over to the large bookshelf and declare that it needed to be reorganized. Then, they would go about taking everything off the shelves, cleaning them, and putting them back up in a different manner that pleased Gilbert. He had been so patient with him through all of it though, so patient Roderich hadn't even realized what he was doing.

No matter how many times the Austrian had needed to rest, Gilbert never scolded him, he would just come and sit down beside him as though he needed the rest too, and they would talk until Roderich's energy was replenished enough for them to continue. He had been so persistent, but also so patient, that Roderich had actually begun to develop his endurance, something he had long given up on. All of his old doctors had gotten too impatient with him to help him recover his strength; when he never showed any progress, they had thought it just wasn't possible for him to gain it back again. And at the time, he had believe them and made his peace with it. But, Gilbert didn't agree, apparently, and had gone and done something no one else had ever been able to do. Now Roderich could cook entire meals without having to stop and sit down. His knees didn't get weak and wobbly and his hands didn't shake even after nearly a half an hour.

Gilbert hadn't given up on him, even when everyone else had.

In return, Roderich took to helping Gilbert train when it was nearly time for his cast to come off. He had healed surprisingly well, but his legs would be much weaker than they had been. Elizabeta took him to a doctor one day, and when they returned, Gilbert no longer had any bandages from his injury. The leg that had been shot was much smaller now though, and he seemed a little embarrassed of it at first, and was a little unwilling to begin training it every day, but Roderich encouraged and assisted him. Then, for the first time since he had come home, Gilbert finally stood up and walked without his crutches.

They still spent most of the daylight hours fighting and arguing with each other; after all, Gilbert's rough mannerisms still irritated him, and Roderich's proud mannerisms seemed to bother the German just as much. But, at the end of each day, when the sun fell or when the day darkened early in the wake of a storm, they would still get together and talk more gently with each other. They often found themselves holding the other's hand, and Roderich somehow always seemed to end up leaning into Gilbert's chest or shoulder, though it was still something they only did when Elizabeta was either not home or already in bed. She knew about them, of course, and teased them whether she saw it or not, but they still grew embarrassed to be seen by any others, and decided that keeping it out of the immediate view of their other housemate would prevent things from becoming too awkward.

When Gilbert was nearly completely healed, he often took it upon himself to go out and do the shopping or run other errands, which would usually leave Roderich completely alone in the house. At first, it was rather nice; he was a shy person by nature, and he enjoyed his solitude. Yet, over time, he found that he liked it less and less, and more often than not, found himself simply waiting for Gilbert to return home. It was strange to be so alone after the two of them had been trapped together in the same house for months.

It was during one of these times that Elizabeta returned home before Gilbert, having been given the day off early, a rare occurrence now that the days were longer.

At first, they greeted each other politely as they normally did, and then Roderich when back to looking at the different books on the bookshelf. He was about to lose himself in though once more when the Hungarian returned to the room and carried a strange air with her.

"Roderich?"

Just the way she said his name caused a heavy coldness to begin forming in his stomach.

"Yes?" he asked, turning away from the books to face her, trying to hold a blank expression.

Whatever they were about to discuss, he had a feeling it wasn't going to be good.

"What are you doing?" she folded her arms and he instantly felt like he had committed some great offence to her.

He glanced at the bookshelf innocently. "Nothing,"

"I mean," she always had been a hard person to hold ground against. "What are you doing with Gilbert?"

Under normal circumstances he would have blushed, but she was looking at him so _coldly_. Almost angrily. He felt very nearly frightened.

"I don't know," he answered timidly, glancing away at the floor.

Her thin eyebrows immediately pulled together and she frowned at him, obviously displeased with his intelligent answer.

"Is it serious?" she drilled him.

He thought for a moment, and then found a bit of courage in the knowledge that yes, he had something with Gilbert and it was, in fact, sincere. He lifted his head up and nodded.

"Yes."

That didn't appear to be an answer that satisfied.

She let out an irritated breath and walked to the window. The room fell silent while he held his position by the bookshelf, very aware that their conversation was nowhere near over.

"He's a soldier, Roderich. He's killed people." She said with an alien venom in her voice.

Roderich didn't know how to respond to that, so he just kept quiet.

"Did you not think that he would have to go back?" she asked without turning. "They'll call him to go back and keep fighting, and do you know what will happen then?"

Each sudden word stabbed at his heart like a knife.

It was true; Gilbert wasn't a civilian, he wasn't exempt from the draft. They would call him out to fight again as soon as he was able, which wouldn't be long now. Roderich hadn't ever really thought about it. Somehow, it had just never really occurred to him. Sometimes the war could feel so far away from them. But, he supposed it wasn't ever very far from any of them anymore.

"He'll _have_ to go. Whether he wants to or not. He'll go." She continued in a tone that was barely above a snarl. "His heart isn't free to give to you."

The Austrian clenched his fists in an attempt to maintain his composure. He didn't know what to say; she made it all sound like it was so obvious.

"And even if you wanted to wait for him," she said, pronouncing it like it was a pathetically fanciful idea. "It would be too dangerous. He couldn't even write to you without the chance of someone finding out. And what hope would you have whether the war was won or lost anyway?"

The room fell silent, but only for the time it took for the meaning of what she was saying to sink in.

"Countries demand the hearts of men. And Gilbert signed his over to Germany the second it asked it of him." She turned around and those normally gentle, grass green eyes were suddenly as hard and cold as emeralds. "He can't give you what you'd ask of him, Roderich."

Her last words shattered like glass against his ears, and with that, she left and went upstairs to her room. He heard the door slam a moment later, and realized his knees were about to collapse beneath him.

Roderich quickly moved and sat on the closest seat to him. The piano bench creaked a little under his weight, but the slight noise was drowned out by the sound of his own gasping. He pressed the palm of his right hand over his chest, able to feel his heart pounding. It hurt, but in a strange way. It felt like a chasm had just been torn into his chest. He pulled himself closer in an attempt to relieve the feeling of this gaping void in his chest, but it did little to help and Roderich had to gasp again to keep up with his climbing heartrate.

Elizabeta had been so angry with him, with his relationship with Gilbert, and yet, everything she said was true.

His eyes began to sting and his other hand came up to cover his mouth, forcing him to breathe harder through his nose.

Gilbert knew all of this, undoubtedly. There was no way he didn't. What did that mean, then? Did he not think their relationship was serious?

That thought alone shook Roderich to his core.

Was this all just for fun in Gilbert's eyes?

The man wasn't a diehard party member, of course, and Gilbert was usually the first to scoff at the propaganda on the radio, but, Elizabeta was right. He was a soldier, which meant he was property of the state. His heart wasn't free, even if Gilbert had wanted to give it to Roderich. But if he knew this, then what was really going on?

The Austrian sat in the silent room, one hand held to his chest, the other pressed over his mouth, and the only answer he could arrive at was simply that Gilbert didn't feel the same way. There was no way he could. Maybe he only needed someone for the time he was home. Roderich was very well aware that he missed his place on the battlefield; he had once declared it to be his natural habitat. Gilbert was a fighter. He wouldn't have need of someone like Roderich while he was away fighting, but while he was hurt and out of place in the civilian world…then he had use for the comfort of another.

And like Elizabeta said, even if Gilbert did want something serious to remain between them, what was the best they could hope for? Whether the war was won or lost, Roderich had no real place in any of it. With his heritage and his preferences, he didn't exactly make up the ideal citizen, and how much longer could he hide? How long could he endure the constant fear?

Roderich closed his eyes as he felt a few hot tears drip from his eyes and splash onto the lenses of his glasses. He had no idea how he hadn't realized any of this sooner. If Elizabeta hadn't said anything, would had ever have realized before Gilbert was suddenly scheduled to ship out again?

It hurt to think that he really would go back and fight, but, in all honesty, Roderich couldn't actually imagine him refusing to go back for Roderich's sake.

He grabbed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and removed his glasses, mopping up the tears and attempting to dry his eyes quickly. He had a feeling Elizabeta wouldn't speak to him anymore that day, but Gilbert could be home at any moment. The thought of them seeing each other suddenly made Roderich sick to his stomach, and he quickly stood up and headed for the stairs. He couldn't see Gilbert, not tonight, not like this. He needed time to figure everything out.

He just needed to be alone for a while.

* * *

Gilbert had to resist the urge to run home. He had been so excited to get out of the house, to walk the familiar streets of his hometown, even just to feel the cold air swirl around him again, but now all he could think about was getting back. As he had gone about his errands, he realized that every thought he had somehow involved Roderich. He imagined himself telling the Austrian little stories about each of the places he passed, or showing him different parts of the town that he thought he might have liked.

His leg was still weak though, and by the time he got home, he had to go straight to the couch and sit down before he even took off his boots or jacket.

He breathed heavily, happy that the house was at least warm enough that he couldn't see his breath indoors.

As he began to tug off his scarf and jacket though, he looked around and realized that he didn't see anyone. He frowned a little as he bent over to pull of his boots, trying to swallow down the first few conclusions his mind jumped too, which were of course the worst possible scenarios. Maybe Roderich had just gone to bed early.

Once in his socks, Gilbert got back up despite the groaning protests in his legs, and climbed the stairs quietly. He immediately saw that the door to Elizabeta's room was shut, and when he cautiously pressed his ear to the door, he could hear her quietly snoring. He might have snickered a little, but continued down the hall to where Roderich's bedroom door was also closed.

He stopped just in front of it, and pressed his ear to the wood.

For a moment, there was a terrifying silence, but then there was a sigh, and a soft rustling of blankets. He was at least in his room, though Gilbert didn't think he sounded like he was asleep. Normally, Roderich always waited for him to come home, and for a moment thought about knocking to make sure everything was okay, but his shyness got the better of him. He pulled away from the door and turned around to head back down the stairs feeling a little disappointed.

The house suddenly felt kind of big.

Kind of lonely.

* * *

The next few days continued in an odd manner. Elizabeta seemed to be in a weird mood, and the house was nearly always silent. Roderich acted strangely too, and seemed to be making an effort not to meet his eyes.

Had he done something wrong?

Gilbert was very aware of his talent for saying exactly the wrong thing, but he couldn't think of anything he said that would upset Roderich like this. Elizabeta either. Whenever he made efforts to confront Roderich, however, the dark-haired man always seemed to be able to slip away from him. He felt like he was trying to catch shadows on the water.

Sometimes, before he was even able to say anything, the Austrian would look up suddenly, and the bizarre expression in those amethyst eyes would silence him. He had a hard enough time reading Roderich as it was, but he had never seen anyone look at him like that before…almost like he was frightened of him.

Before he knew it, it had suddenly been nearly a week since they had spoken to each other. They hadn't slept together since, nor had they even sat next to each other in all that time. Roderich and Elizabeta weren't speaking either, but he caught them exchanging solemn glances on occasion. It made him feel like there was something important going on that he was kept out of. It hurt him, he missed Roderich, but when it stretched over so many days, it just made him feel angry.

This was his house, damnit; he had a right to know what was going on.

He waited for Elizabeta to leave, which she did in complete silence, and then he made his move.

Roderich had taken to hiding up in his room all day, so Gilbert climbed the stairs, mentally rehearsing what he was going to say. The door to Roderich's room was shut, but he knew very well that that particular door didn't have a lock on it, and so he didn't even knock before he grasped the cold handle, and threw the door open.

Roderich looked up at him from the chair in the far corner of the room as though he was looking at a stranger who had just barged in and insulted his mother.

Before, he would have smiled at that, at least inwardly, but now all he could see was that strange expression that hadn't left his face in days.

"Can I help you?" Roderich snapped at length when Gilbert found himself suddenly at a loss for words.

More than anything, he wanted to just yell and demand to know what the hell was going on, but he knew that Roderich would respond with mock-obliviousness. Frustrated, he nearly stomped his foot in an attempt to find the right words.

"What's wrong?" he finally blurted out.

Roderich had the nerve to glance around the room, as though he were looking for a situation somewhere near him that he had failed to take notice of.

He shrugged when there was nothing to be found on the floor of his bedroom. "Nothing."

A lie. Told right to his face. God, sometimes Gilbert hated this man.

He could feel his face heat up with all of his anger and frustration, and he entered the room fully, shutting the door behind him.

"Well, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on." He declared, trying to sound serious and threatening, but mostly just feeling like he was acting childish.

That feeling was emphasized by the way Roderich sighed patronizingly and set his book down before folding his hands in his lap and looking up to give Gilbert his attention.

He had thought about this confrontation for days now, but somehow, that look just stole all of his words away.

Silence filled the room to the brim.

He was actually considering just leaving when Roderich's eyebrow then quirked up expectantly. It turned out that it was all it took to set Gilbert off completely.

"What the hell did I do to make you hate me so much? Why won't you just talk to me? I'm sorry if I said something, or did something, I really am, but I can't do anything about it if you don't tell me!" he shouted, and realized with dread that he felt like crying.

He clenched his teeth and his hands balled into tight fists, but when he looked back up at Roderich, he saw that the Austrian was looking away from him. He had reached up to cover his mouth and Gilbert saw him blink a bit harder, like he was holding back tears. That terrified him.

…Was it really that bad?

"Roderich?" he asked quietly after a moment of trying to compose himself, feeling the hot anger inside of him evaporate and turn into cold fear in the span of only a couple seconds.

The brunet swallowed audibly, and then took a few deep breaths with his eyes closed before he removed his hand, though he didn't look back at Gilbert.

"I'm sorry, but, I can't." he said slowly, pronouncing each word as if he was speaking a foreign language.

Gilbert felt like he had swallowed an icy rock. His stomach felt sour and cold. Can't tell him?

"Can't what?" he asked.

He was scared of the answer, but he couldn't stand to be kept in the dark any longer.

"Us," he muttered. "I don't want to pretend this is something it's not. I can't."

Gilbert stared with his mouth opened, feeling completely caught off guard.

_What?_

"What do you mean?" he gasped. "Pretending?"

Roderich's shapely eyebrows furrowed together and he glared at the floor. "You know what I mean."

Gilbert scrambled to try to put it together. Pretending that their relationship was something it wasn't? What did that even mean?

"I'm not pretending," he said firmly, but feeling rather stupid.

He was so lost.

Roderich's frown deepened, but he caught a glimpse of unfathomable sadness in his face.

"Gilbert," the Austrian drew in a deep breath before he pulled himself to his feet, walking a few paces closer, but then stopped and crossed his arms loosely over his middle. "Where did you think this was going between us?"

The German rubbed the back of his neck, feeling like he was put on the spot. "I don't know,"

"Then, we might as well stop fooling ourselves," Roderich told him.

He looked up defensively. "Just because I don't know where it's going doesn't mean it's pretend,"

Roderich shifted on his feet. "What about when you're all healed? What about when you have to leave again?"

Gilbert couldn't have even tried to hide the surprise that crossed his face. "I'm not going back!"

The Austrian's eyes widened before he blinked, and then the confusion was displayed across his face. "You're not?"

"No!" Gilbert shouted at him, feeling rather wounded. "Of course I'm not! How could you think that?"

"Well," it was Roderich's turn to be defensive. "How was I supposed to know? You never said anything!"

They fell quiet for a moment, separating to allow the air between them to cool down.

Roderich walked over to the bed and sat down, leaving room for Gilbert, which he took after a moment. They waited in silence while they got their thoughts together.

So, this was all because Roderich had thought he was going back? He couldn't believe it. After a few minutes of coping, he supposed he hadn't actually ever told Roderich or Elizabeta that he wasn't planning on going back, but he had just sort of assumed they knew. No one had ever asked him about it, after all. If he left, there would be no one with them to protect them. He had been injured of course, but, he had been trying so hard to get strong again so that he could take care of and protect them both. He couldn't just leave them alone to fend of themselves in Germany. Not when this war was spreading abroad as well as at home. It wasn't safe for them to stay, but, he couldn't just leave and let them try to get out of Germany on their own.

Not to mention, he had come to depend on them as well. He needed their company; he needed to know he wasn't alone in the world. He had lost his grandfather, and would probably never see his little brother again. He had a few friends, sure, but not anyone he could really get close to, except for Roderich and Elizabeta. They were the only ones who knew him and they had all been through a lot together already. They couldn't split up now.

Especially with what was between Roderich and him. Because it wasn't pretend. It was real.

That must have been what he meant.

It still sort of hurt him to think that was what Roderich was anticipating, but he supposed since he hadn't said anything, that's what he should have expected him to think.

"So," Roderich mumbled quietly. "You aren't going to go fight again?"

"No. I never was really planning on it," he shook his head and then ran his fingers through his hair. "I…I don't want to leave,"

"Rosenheim?"

Gilbert frowned. "You."

"Oh," Roderich looked down, but Gilbert could still see the blush on his cheeks.

And maybe a hint of a smile.

"So what are we going to do?" Roderich eventually asked him, and then added: "Elizabeta thinks you're going back, too,"

He sighed and scratched his cheek. "Well, it's getting pretty close, we should probably get ready to leave,"

Roderich looked up at him uncertainly, fear shining in his eyes.

Gilbert couldn't help it; he smiled.

"Don't worry, Specs," he winked and spoke self-assuredly. "You can count on me to take care of us."

The Austrian frowned so endearingly that when he opened his mouth to retort, Gilbert took the opportunity to steal a kiss from him before he could speak. Roderich raised a hand to slap him, but Gilbert just laughed and caught it, bringing it down to his lips and kissing his knuckles, which served to fluster Roderich further.

He tried to tug him into his arms, and succeeded after receiving only a moment of resistance. As Roderich allowed himself to be held and kissed, he finally gave up and grinned at him.

"Gilbert?"

"Yeah?"

"Just, shut up."

Gilbert laughed loudly.


End file.
